I recently got back from visiting my sister-in-law and her husband in Florida. While most people in Florida don’t speak with a heavy Southern accent, they live in Pensacola, less than 30 minutes from Alabama.
While there, we went to what could be my and my husband’s favorite bar in the U.S. -- the Florabama, an establishment which straddles the Florida/Alabama line. Before Ivan came through and ripped apart the building, there was a line painted down the middle of the floor showing where the state line passed. It was amazing, you could drink in two states at the same time.
In the Florabama you hear a lot of Southern. On a recent Saturday night, the band was playing -- loudly. A woman came up to me and said, “Scuse me, do y’all have a ‘pin’?” Thinking she had broken a strap or lost a button, I had to say “Sorry, no.”
She went down to my sister-in-law, who has lived in the South for more than 30 years, and asked her the same question. She reached into her purse and handed the woman the PEN she had been seeking. Turns out she wanted to write down her phone number for a guy she met that evening at the bar. Now, if she had just asked for paper and a “pin,” I might have been able to figure it out.
It’s interesting all the differences in a common language. When my husband and I were in Mexico a few years ago, we met a couple from the British Isles. He asked my husband if he wanted to play golf the next day and my husband, not sure of the skill level of the other man, told him that he would love to, but he wasn’t that good. The other man replied, “Don’t worry, we just play for the ‘crack.’”
Our eyebrows went up a bit on that comment, but it turns out that crack just means friendship, fun. Boy were we relieved.
I’m sure people down South and in England have some comments about the way we talk, too.