You Talk Funny

For the past couple days, I've noticed my 17 year old doing some weird pronunciations.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know."

"We're going to go to a movie."

I can't exactly explain what was tipping me off that he sounded different. It was the "o" sound. It didn't sound normal in some words.

"Since when are you from Minnesota?" I asked him. Not that there's anything wrong with being from Minnesota, mind you. I remember once meeting someone from the fine state, and there's was something about their accent that caught my attenion.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Mom," he said.

"Sweden? Norway? Who have you been hanging out with lately who talks funny?" I inquired. (The italics and bolds are foreshadowing, but I'll stop that now.)

"The same people I've hung out with all summer," he snipped, getting annoyed with his dear, ole mom.

"I don't know, but you're talking funny," I told him and let it go.

The next day, I noticed again his odd pronunciations, mainly of the letter o. I pointed out he did it again, and he pressed that I explain. I said "go" as a normal person from these parts would say it. And then I said it again, how I perceived he was saying "go" but with a Minnesota, some place north of here, Scandanavian twang.

"Uh, Mom, there's no difference in what you've just said. Say them again."

I did, and said ok, whatever, maybe I'm just hearing things, and let him go on his merry way.

It hit me. I'm the one he's been around who talks funny. I've been told that I have a very distinctive voice - to the point that it has given me a complex. I've been told that while someone doesn't recognize my face right away, they recognize the voice as someone they know. At my fifteen year high school reunion, someone I had been friends with through much of middle and high school, didn't recognize me. (It's safe to say that I did my blossoming way after I crossed the stage and accepted my high school diploma.)

"I didn't recognize you, but I knew that I knew the voice," she told me.

I've been asked, "Where are you from because you sure don't sound like a Hoosier."

I don't know how a Hoosier sounds, but I do know that if I fall into the right crowd of individuals, I can land's sake, pert near, reckon, and ain't got with the best of them.

I have, in fact, been told I sound like I'm from Michigan or Minnesota.

My mother-in-law, from upstate NY, told me once that I talk funny. She assured me that the children speak just fine. But me? I talk funny, and she didn't understand how the kids didn't end up speaking the way I do, but she was glad they talked normal.

I've come up with several theories on this phenomenon.

My voice is slightly deeper than would expect coming from me. I was plagued with many, many bouts of swollen tonsils and strep throat as a child. It was to the point that the last time my mom dragged me to the dr. again with tonsilitis, the dr. said the next time, we really needed to consider having the tonsils removed.

This scared the beejeebers out of me. The next sore throat I got, I grinned and beared it because I wasn't about to tell my mom and be taken to the hospital. A girl told me in first grade that she had her tonsils out. She brought the jar to show and tell that held the contents that once resided in her body.

At recess, she told us they put her to sleep. Dogs were "put to sleep," and I wasn't having any part of that.

"But how did they get them out?" I asked. I couldn't figure how anyone could get their hands into one's throat and get them out. It looked to be close quarters to me, so I couldn't even fathom how a dr. went about it. And because I didn't understand the finer dynamics of surgery in general, other than they typically cut someone open, I had to ask.

"They put a needle up my butt, and got them out while I was put to sleep," she said.

That was it. It was all I needed to hear. No one, and I mean no one was going to put me to sleep like a dog and stick anything up my behind, much less a needle. I'd gargle with salt water on the sly. I'd take cough drops and throat lozenges from my grandma's house and self-medicate. I would have done anything to avoid the needle-up-the-rump.

Is it possible this ended up damaging my vocal cords? I think it could be an explanation. It took great lengths to speak in such a way that my mom wouldn't say, "You've got another sore throat again, don't you?"

Also, as far as my pronunciation goes - I've been told on many occasions that I do a great job of enunciating. "Did you go to school for broadcast journalism?" one person inquired. "It sounds like you've been trained to speak clearly."

While I've never been schooled on enunciation, I did grow up with great-grandparents close at hand. Great-grandparents who were hard of hearing. I do remember being expected to speak up, not talk so fast, and to speak clearly. One great-grandma was not only hard of hearing, but also blind. I've remained close to grandparents, one of whom is still living and doesn't care much for wearing her hearing aide.

So I suspect that's a fair explanation of my ability to enunciate. Perhaps that has led to my strange pronunciation of the "o" sound and other vowels. I don't know why it's taken so long to pick up on my son's mimicking my accent. Perhaps, we've spent so much time together this summer, I'm noticing it.

Regardless, I'm the one who talks funny who he's been hanging out with this summer.