Page 11 of September Lessons
“Why in the big blue world do y’all here pronounce L E I G H likelay.It’s wrong. I get hives every time I hear it.”
Everyone looked in Leigh-Ann’s direction, although Carrie was the one who asked that. Ms. Tichenor allowed a small smile before she answered in earnest. “That has to do with regional differences, yes.”
Carrie twirled her pencil like a baton. Although Leigh-Ann swore she focused on what the new girl said, her eyes were instantly enchanted by that rhythmic movement of that mechanical pencil swinging one way, then the other. If Carrie used the same rhythm for her words, Leigh-Ann would have been hypnotized and completely lost to Ms. Tichenor’s further explanation.
“I don’t have time to completely deviate from today’s lesson plan,” the English teacher said, as she wrote down more notes from their reading on the board, “but I would ask your history teacher about the people who settled this area. Then ask him who explored it. Take the name Willamette, for example…”
“Whoa.” Carrie slammed her pencil against her desk. “The Willawhatta?”
Ms. Tichenor turned around, incredulous. “Willamette Valley… the Willamette River…”
“You mean the…”
The other half of the class groaned. “It’s Willamette, damnit, ‘Bama!”
Carrie puffed out her cheeks and gave Digby Wallace a side-glare that suggested he keep his thoughts to himself. “Y’all need phonetics. That word isclearlypronounced Will-uh-met. It’s basically French and a half.”
How Ms. Tichenor kept her performative teacher’s smile on without staring Carrie down was something Leigh-Ann would wonder about for a long,longtime. “It’s true that there were many French explorers in the area when that word was first written down on maps. The word Willamette actually comes from a Native American village. I believed it was one of the Clackamas tribes.” A giant map of Oregon hung on the far side of the room. Handy for the occasional Oregonian author they were forced to read. More handy for days like today. When Ms. Tichenor pointed to the Clackamas territory, she said, “French explorers spelled Willamette the way they did because it made sense to them. Naturally, the typical pronunciationwouldbe more like Will-uh-met, but it’s not that simple when you consider the Scandinavian settlers that came to the area. Things get… murky. Linguistically speaking, that is.”
Carrie slowly shook her head in disbelief. Leigh-Ann struggled to keep from giggling.
“Nowadays, locals have agreed it’s called Wil-lamb-it, so that’s what we call it, damnit.”
The class burst into laughter. As if that were the first time Ms. Tichenor swore in class.
Carrie sat back in her seat and said, “That doesn’t explain the Lay and Lee thing.”
“Word of advice, Ms. Sage,” Ms. Tichenor said with a twitching grin, “never head farther south from here. Your brain will really break form how they pronounce things.”
“They also got that weird twang going on down there. Hey, ‘Bama,” Digby continued to tease the new girl, “you might fit right in!”
“Digby,” Ms. Tichenor snapped. “Can we please get back to discussing1984?There’s only thirty-five minutes left in this class, and we havemuchto go over.”
Because of the interruption, Ms. Tichenor kept them thirty seconds past the bell. They only had two minutes to get to their next class, but Leigh-Ann wasn’t worried. She already had her stuff for the class next door. Carrie, however, hustled out of the room as soon as they were allowed to leave.
“Learned something of real value today, huh?” Leigh-Ann chided out in the hallway. “I don’t mean the hardware store in town.”
“The what?” Carrie swung open her locker door and tossed her English notebook and copy of1984into its depths. “Y’all got some interesting lingo around here. And… accents…”
“Thinking about that twang, huh?”
“Y’all sound like daft Texans.” Carrie shut her locker. “I don’t get it. The farther west I drove, the more the Southern left the people. Then I got to Idaho… then Oregon…”
“It came back?”
“You’re not surprised, huh?”
“I grew up here, so no.” Leigh-Ann shrugged. “I figure it’s a rural America thing. They don’t speak with twangs in Nebraska or Montana?”
“Sure they do, just not… you know…Texan!”
Leigh-Ann had never heard a lingual comparison to Texas before. She had seen plenty of shows and movies set there, after all, and outside of the occasional “y’all” it sounded completely different to her.Everyone in America says y’all… don’t they?Granted, it really slid off Carrie’s tongue when she said it. Was quite pleasant to listen to. The more heated she got, the more that Alabaman accent flew out like she was hanging out with her folks at Thanksgiving.
Leigh-Ann giggled, catching Carrie’s attention.
“What’s so funny?”
“An outsider perspective is kinda nice, I guess.” Why was Leigh-Ann blushing? She knew she was, because she never got that hot unless the boiler was turned up in January or she wore one too many layers. She wore nothing but a T-shirt, jeans, and an old sweatshirt that day.How often do I blush around this girl, anyway? She’s gonna think I have a problem. Like rosacea.“We don’t get a lot of new people here. Most of the new folks who move to Paradise Valley or Roundabout either got no kids or really little ones. Most of our classmates have been together since at least elementary school.”
