Say What?

One wouldn't think that in traveling 30 miles one would encounter idiosyncrasies in language.

Devil Strip?

And one in particular that I still cannot abide: the absence of "to be."

As in the sign someone posted on the fax machine that said, "needs fixed." I wanted with all my might to add "TO BE" between the two solitary words, but I refrained.

However, as anyone who has ever worked on my team knows, the absence of "to be" is guaranteed to launch me into an agitated chorus of, "to be, to be, to be, to be!!"

I was convinced this must be a regional quirk, since I hadn't heard this particular usage anywhere else, even when I lived in the Old Dominion.

The other night, my suspicions were confirmed when we attended a talk by Edward McClelland, who penned the book, How to Speak Midwestern.

It turns out, Cleveland and Akron are in two different zones.

Cleveland folks, whom he terms "Inland North," originally migrated from New England.

Akron natives ("Midland") originally hailed from Pennsylvania.

And yes, the whole "to be" thing is also a Midland thing, originating in Northern Ireland with the Scots-Irish.

I felt slightly better knowing there was an origin to the phenom, and it wasn't just because someone got lazy along the way and decided to drop the "to be." (Although that certainly could have been the original motivation, who knows?)

Other quirks between our two cities include the phrase "devil strip" used to describe what I grew up calling a "tree lawn." Mr. McClelland theorizes it was originally called a devil strip by coal miners who wanted their kids to be afraid of getting too close to the street.

As time goes on, and we become a more mobile society, many of our twangs and quirks are blending and disappearing. In a discussion we had at work, some of the younger folks said it was their parents or grandparents who had certain idiosyncrasies in their speech that hadn't been handed down.

I know that when I lived in Virginia, I didn't think I had an accent at all, until I hit a word with a twangy "a" sound, and the entire room burst out laughing.

Which I found amusing, since I had been talking to folks who hailed from Thailand, Venezuela, Israel and Germany, as well as places all across the U.S.

Who knew I had an accent?