You say tomato

...and I say tomahto -- phonetics can be fun! Something that has interested me all my life is dialects; we have some truly amazing ones in our fair land. Not just the southern drawls of my own younger years, but the almost staccato speech of the northeast cities. New York City alone has a multitude of accents -- understandable given the diversity and backgrounds of it's citizens.

Then there are the broad tones of the Midwest, the slight lilt of the Upper Plains, the Spanish-tinged voices in the desert Southwest, and the clear conversation of the West Coast, familiar to most of us from the large entertainment industry in Southern California.

And each of these have their own sub-dialects, not to mention the rural areas. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is also wonderful that all across the land, the distinctive speech of African Americans can be heard. I remember the brouhaha over the concept of Ebonics, and it just made me put my head in my hands and sigh. It amazes me that latent racism allows someone to look down upon a black woman "holding forth", when this may be one of our strongest and most effective dialects between the shining seas. I find it striking, as a lesbian from the Deep South, that many anglo gays, especially men, have adopted and embraced quite a few of the expressions and mannerisms of the African American community. To put it another way, nobody reads someone's beads like a Sistah.

I recently heard of a trend in the South, of people seeking to modify their accents, going so far as to enroll in classes to "lose their Southern accent" and I must say I was mildly horrified. That almost seems to me to be an attempt to forget where one came from, which I find sad. Certainly I believe one should be educated, and able to write a correctly spelled and punctuated sentence, but that needn't be at the expense of parting with one's earliest education -- language. That's melting the pot a bit too far for my tastes. I've lived in several different parts of the country, and have picked up some of the local lingua from all of them -- but nothing tickles me more than having someone turn around and say, "You're from Arkansas, aren't you?"

It's all a part of communicating in America. But I fear, in our political dialog, we've allowed some unfortunate rhetoric and catch-phrases to creep in, and skew the semantics.

For example: Global warming -- the buzz-word that encompasses the wide concept of environmental change. It's been an uphill battle, and it's still being fought, to get the multinational monied interests, and the politicians they own, to even acknowledge the concept, but at last common sense is coming in vogue. Even W has had to grudgingly admit there's a problem.

Sorry,
George,
but yes,
we have no bananas.

I think we need to rachet this up a notch; "global warming" sounds somewhat passive. I suggest we start calling it global HEATING. Because that's what we are doing to the planet.

Then there is the military rhetoric, with so many examples of Newspeak Orwell's Ministry of Truth couldn't keep up. I particularly abhor "defense spending." Goes hand in hand with this idea of "preemptive" actions. Sum that thought up in "offensive spending", and you get quite a bit closer to the truth these days.

To bring it all together, doesn't matter if you say it with a cultured sniff, a drawl, a twang, or street-smart smack, the truth will always set you free.

Stay the course? Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto, let's call the whole thing off.