Is there a Cracker term equivalent to "Uncle Tom"?
If not, there oughta be. I've been doing my pre-semester GTA orientation this week. The class I'll be teaching is a combination of composition and communications, which I'm totally into. This speech guy at the school spoke to my group on Wednesday. He's nice; I don't like him. He exaggerates all of his vowels the way I do most of my o's (e.g., now, no, and know all rhyme with "meow," but none of them are pronounced as homophones) and it makes him sound like a colossal ass. Wednesday he went on this larger-than-scale diatribe against using "gonna" in speech aimed at an "educated audience" and today his fanaticism came out when everyone got into this conflict regarding speakers who pronounce "th" as "d."
What I garnered from his vowel-exaggerated, impassioned (or indignant) defense:
His rural-accented grandfather said "de" and "dat." It makes his social-climbing ass ashamed. He brought up his background once against later in discussion, repeating the term "rural accents" and adding in squirrel-eating, as in he should probably be ashamed of admitting he's descended from "squirrel-eaters."
I wanted to be all Dave Chappelle "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong" and throw something at him, and be like, "Fuck You!" I wanted to be more realistic and bitchy and throw in his face how badly-rendered his noveau riche airs are and he's not fooling anyone who knows how to see all the lines of communication that intersect the classes. (I love it when I get to tug these lines myself, and surprise someone I'm conversing with by switching it up to a phrase or subject they simply take for granted I wouldn't know for whatever reason.)
Anyway, I hope never to have to converse with him one-on-one, because I will make left-field comments and they will be snide. I hate it when people so badly disguise playing dress-up because they never got quite comfortable in the role they aspired to. Braggadocio is so much more tolerable because it at least acknowledges its own caricature.
But one the bright side, it seems the professor who's top dog of operations espouses ideas I like a whole lot more. (He evidently baffled more than a few other professors when he recommended having all the incoming freshmen read something on par with Foucault because they'd probably get more than everyone would assume they would. At least I know the better ring to throw my hat into.
What I garnered from his vowel-exaggerated, impassioned (or indignant) defense:
His rural-accented grandfather said "de" and "dat." It makes his social-climbing ass ashamed. He brought up his background once against later in discussion, repeating the term "rural accents" and adding in squirrel-eating, as in he should probably be ashamed of admitting he's descended from "squirrel-eaters."
I wanted to be all Dave Chappelle "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong" and throw something at him, and be like, "Fuck You!" I wanted to be more realistic and bitchy and throw in his face how badly-rendered his noveau riche airs are and he's not fooling anyone who knows how to see all the lines of communication that intersect the classes. (I love it when I get to tug these lines myself, and surprise someone I'm conversing with by switching it up to a phrase or subject they simply take for granted I wouldn't know for whatever reason.)
Anyway, I hope never to have to converse with him one-on-one, because I will make left-field comments and they will be snide. I hate it when people so badly disguise playing dress-up because they never got quite comfortable in the role they aspired to. Braggadocio is so much more tolerable because it at least acknowledges its own caricature.
But one the bright side, it seems the professor who's top dog of operations espouses ideas I like a whole lot more. (He evidently baffled more than a few other professors when he recommended having all the incoming freshmen read something on par with Foucault because they'd probably get more than everyone would assume they would. At least I know the better ring to throw my hat into.