Southern Sentence about a Dilemma

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, hey, I’m Lou Culp from Indianapolis, Indiana, and I think I’m speaking to Grant.

You are, Lou. Welcome to the show. You sound very exuberant.

Well, I am, I am. And is Martha there as well?

I am right here, Lou.

Oh, hello, Martha. I love your show. I listen to it on a Saturday about 2 o’clock.

Yep, that sounds about right.

In Indianapolis, yes.

And I have a question to ask you.

Yes, please.

I had read a novel this summer called Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.

And I’m reading along.

It’s a turn-of-the-century kind of novel.

Probably it was written in 1984.

But the drama unfolds when cars are being bought and that kind of thing.

So I would think late 1800s.

And came up on a sentence that had the word one, O-N-E, the number one, after a comma, and then the period.

And I ran into it once, thought this is strange.

It didn’t even read very well.

Ran into it again a number of times, and total, I found about four to five times when they have put the word one after a sentence.

And it just simply didn’t make sense to me.

I could not even read it orally in a very smooth way.

Oh, really? Well, can you give us an example?

I will give you an example.

Loma was always making herself a bosom or a bustle one.

All right. So that doesn’t make sense to you up there in Indiana.

But it would make sense in the South.

It does make sense in the South?

Yes, yes, it does. I’ve heard it many times. It’s actually elliptical for one or the other.

Okay, that was my only explanation, like an either one.

Exactly, exactly. You know, I’m going to quit or get fired, one.

Okay, well, that does make sense. I would like to hear how it is spoken, though.

What would Aunt Maiso say, Martha?

What would Aunt Mazo say?

I’m going to…

W-W-A-M-S.

Yeah, she would say, I’m going to make a bosom or a bustle, one, like that.

Oh, I see.

You’d put…

Yeah, so it’s a kind of stress.

It’s not really the…

It’s not like the…

It’s not like you’re raising your tone on that word, right?

You’re just emphasizing it, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

You’re just basically dropping off or the other.

But I love the fact that, Lou, that you weren’t able to hear this in your head because it was foreign to you.

Yeah.

And you need to hear it.

It was very foreign to me.

You need to hear it authentically said.

Yeah, I can see how seeing it on the page would be really confusing.

So, Lou, mystery solved.

Mystery solved.

I now know.

And I thank you kindly.

You’ll now probably see it everywhere.

Yes, I probably will.

Thanks for calling, Lou.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

The mysteries of American English run deep.

The mysteries of English as a whole are even deeper.

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