I Say Tomato

Bluffton Today Column
August 11, 2010

Apparently I have an accent. A New Jersey accent it would seem. Frankly, this is news to me. As far as I am concerned, I don’t have an accent. But geez, you certainly do. Have you heard yourself?

I bring this up because last weekend I was at a restaurant with my sister and we experienced a little communication breakdown. We ordered drinks and something to eat, and as the waitress turned to walk away I said, “And can we get water too.” She spun back around and looked at me like I had two heads, “waters,” I repeated in exasperation. Yeah, still nothing. I gave it one more shot and enunciated as best I could, “waah-ter?” Bingo! “Of course,” she responded with a smile.

It was at that moment that I finally had to admit that I do indeed have an accent. But, only on some words … like “warder,” which is apparently how I pronounce water. I suspect that the waitress thought I was asking to order (rhymes with warder), which we had just done so that certainly explains her you-have-two-heads look.

While I am at it, I might as well fess-up to “cawfee,” you know that caffeine loaded goodness you start your day with? And “wawlk,” which is what I do when I put one foot in front of the other.

So, basically the more I think about it I realize that if I was to narrate my first hour of each day, no one would understand me. I get up in the morning and I go for a wawlk. I come back and I simultaneously drink some warder while making my cawfee. Hmph, what are the chances?

After the warder episode of 2010 my sister and I started talking about some of the other linguistic challenges we have encountered since migrating south. For example, when I need food I go to the food store. People always laugh at me when I say “food store.” Apparently, it is the “grocery store.” I beg to differ … if I buy I liquor at the liquor store, why can’t I get my food at the food store?

Once at the food store (fine! the grocery store) I take items off the shelf and put them in my cart, which is another misnomer. Groceries (read: not food) go in a buggy. Buggy? As in horse and …? When I think of a buggy, I picture the Ingalls family (Ma, Pa, Laura, Mary, the whole crew) headed into town to Olsen’s Mercantile. After Laura and Nellie pull each other’s pig tails (which happened in every episode) they buy their necessities for the next 60 days, load them into their buggy, which is pulled by their horse, and head back down the dusty road to their farm, where everyone slept in one room. I’m just saying …

Speaking of Pa, I don’t drink pop, I drink soda. Actually I don’t really even really like soda. I have, however, become the number one fan of sweet tea. If I was to go back to Jersey and order a sweet tea, I am pretty certain the waitress would give me a tea, toss some sugar packets on the table and mutter under her breathe that I should sweeten my own damn tea. Yeah, they don’t really sweeten anything up north. (Including moi.)

Now, if it turns out that I need cash before I grab a sweet tea, I will stop at the “MAC.” The what? You know that machine at the bank that spits money out at you, after you enter your four-digit code. Ah yes, you’re probably thinking that machine is called the ATM. And, for 99.9% of the world it is. Somehow however, when the ATM was unveiled in New Jersey, we decided to call it the MAC machine. In our defense, “MAC” was one of the interbank networks similar to the Cirrus and PLUS networks today, the logos for which you see on machines. Apparently in the garden state, we haven’t been able to let go of the MAC label. But at least now you know what the heck .01% are talking about.

So in homage to the “garden state” that heavily influenced my vernacular and pronunciation, I guess we can only come to one conclusion. I say tomato, you say tomahto, let’s work the whole thing out. Or, we can just keep making fun of each other, which is certainly my preference.

PS – this one is for you Jack!

Courtney Hampson says either, you say eyether. She says neither and you say nyther. If you’d like to communicate with her sans accent, email is best. Contact her at courtneyh@hargray.com.