The Mysterious Seb’n (4)

 

 

Harvard once had an American dialect assessment you could take online, it was by far the most accurate tool of its type I’ve encountered; it nailed where I grew up as well as other regional ways of speaking that have influenced me. 

My Dad, with his “seb’m”, was from Nelson County, VA, but lived in the Washington D.C. area and in rural Northern Virginia after his father died. My grandmother Withers moved to be closer to her family in Northern Virginia, and as my Dad grew into his teenage years he lived with an older sister and her husband in D.C. When he was 17 years old Daddy joined the Navy during WWII. The childhood memories my Dad shared with me were of the Andersons, his mother’s family in Northern Virginia, not of the Withers family in Nelson County.

 

The population of the post-WWII D.C. area, in which I grew up, reflected the War years in that we had neighbors from many parts of the country whose families had moved to the area during the War to work for the Federal government, in associated organizations, or in the local expanding economy – the influx of people needed to be housed, fed, clothed, educated and entertained. My Dad may have been one of the few adults in our suburban Maryland neighborhood who had attended D.C. area public schools.

 

As a result of the foregoing, I heard many ways of speaking as a child, many accents, and various terms for the same thing. I recall having an argument with a neighbor friend over what meal was “dinner” and what meal was “supper.” Words mattered to me even as a kid. (As I recall, the Harvard dialect assessment dealt with the regional distinction between dinner and supper.)

 

A question on the Harvard assessment had to do with how you pronounce “Washington.” Some of us may be unaware that there is more than one pronunciation of the first syllable. This distinction extends to words like “water” and “washing.” How is “wa” pronounced?

 

Keeping in mind that I grew up in the D.C. area…drum roll please…I was raised with the pronunciation “Warshington.” This means that water was warter, and washing was warshing. I am not suggesting that all Washingtonians did this, but many Warshingtonians did it – it was natural. I’ve not taken the time to track down where this “r” came from, that is, whether it was imported from another region, but it was notable enough to be included in the Harvard dialect assessment – so I am not alone.

 

Which is to say that while my Dad had his “seb’m” that I had my Warshington.

 

Vickie, being from Iowa, was quick to point out what was, for her, my unusual way of pronouncing Washington. As I thought about it, and about the way most of the world says “Washington,” I did something I suppose I might be ashamed of and which I will confess to you, I changed my way of saying Washington, water, and washing.

 

I admit that even though it has been many years since I made the change, I still do not say “Wa-shington” naturally, for I was raised a “War-shington” boy and I’ll always be a Warshington boy; you can take the boy out of Warshington but you can’t take the Warshington out of the boy. People may hear me say “Washington” but I’m thinking “Warshington.”

 

Do you call Pepsi or Coke a soft drink, pop, soda pop, soda, or tonic? Is dinner the midday meal, or is the midday meal lunch? Is dinner the evening meal, or is that supper? Is the paper thing they put your groceries in a bag or a sack or something else? Do you go for a walk in the woods or in the timber?

 

 

 

 

War-sington