I feel bad for my extended absence, so I’ve been rooting around in the vault for some unposted posts. Here’s one I found…

When I was in college, I had a roommate, Dave, who was an unabashed, unashamed Yankee. Not the New York variety (who should feel no end of shame. I’m looking at you, Damon!!!), but one of the fast-disappearing (due to poor economies, overtaxation, and Massachusetts-ites buying up the southern areas) breed of native northern New Englanders. Being also a Safety major (yes, there is such a thing, and a good living to be made from it), he was known, when the need arose, to shout “Safety FEHRST, buddy!!” Upon learning of his sister’s proclivities toward “Hip Hop” music and culture, and its scene developing around the New Hampshire capitol, he’d mumble “It’s Con-cud, not Comp-tun.” This gave me no end of joy.

Dave wasn’t your garden-variety Yankee, who are normally rough around the edges and prone to obscenity. He was fond of many types of music, and played guitar with a surf-rock trio, which included his future wife and a later roommate of mine. He now, I kid you not, plays euphonium for his town band. Town band!! Euphonium!!

Technically, I’m not a Yankee, myself. My family is almost entirely of French Canadian extraction. Two of my mother’s three brothers were born in Canada, and my father’s parents were not terribly far removed from the Great White North, either. Yankee is more of an adopted culture. To this end, Dave made me a copy of one of his tapes (yes, cassette tape, and this was before piracy laws, I’m pretty sure…) . It was by a local personality named Fritz Wetherbee, an 11th generation Yankee. He made a short recording called “How to Speak N’Hampsha Like a Native”. In it, he details some of the linguistic idiosyncrasies of this dying culture. I was much more thrilled than I should have been to find that my tiny home town was included, though not for flattery:

“Yuppies are everywhere… people have actually been seen joggin’ on Swamp Road in Greenfield.”

I’d lost the tape some time after college. It wasn’t until last summer that I purchased a replacement. I think it’s noteworthy that it is now available on CD, and resides on my iPod.

I wanted to add one small item to the lessons on this recording. I’m not entirely sure if it’s a Yankee thing, a French Canadian thing, or some third thing I don’t know about, but I’ve noticed it enough to feel that it needs stating:

Retail Business Names – Possessive
When referring to the name of a store, restaurant, or service station, it is customary to use the possessive form.

“Well, I went down to Wal-Mart’s and Target’s, and even Ikea’s, and it just made me miss Ames’s”.

This grammatical construction indicates that the place of business to which you are referring belongs to the person or company after whom the place of business is named. Wal-Mart’s is the building and business belonging to the Wal-Mart company. This is probably a holdover from a time when places of business really were all named after the proprietor. Of course, this does not keep folks from confusing the possessive and proper forms simultaneously.

“I jus’ got back from the Wal-Maht’s depahtment sto-ah, in that new plah-zer in Au-behn”.

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