Words ring like voice of an old friend

Phrases endearing reminder of home

Now that I’ve moved closer toward the spot from which I sprung upon this earth, I regularly hear a language that sounds sweetly familiar — words I haven’t heard strung together in a while, along with pronunciations that drawl one-syllable words into three.

Now and again — actually, take that very phrase. Rather than “now and then,” locals often say “now and again” as I do, and I can’t help but beam every time I hear it, like it’s the voice of an old friend.

An elderly gentleman was telling me a story the other day about his wife. While the story was fine, I became enamored by the manner in which he spoke of her. Love oozed from the deep crevices around his eyes and mouth as he lively talked about their life, even after 65 years together. I was jolted back to his story by a phrase I hadn’t heard in ages.

“Yeah, so now she says she ain’t doing laundry no more, ’cause she can’t even reach the knobs on the new dryer. She ain’t but this tall!” he said, laughing and stretching his arm straight out from his chest.

I hadn’t heard the words “ain’t but,” used to mean “almost,” since my grandfather died over 25 years ago. Having completed the fourth grade before he was required to work on his family’s farm, he employed a vocabulary that was entertaining, to say the least. As an adult, he traveled the country as a salesman and I have no doubt his genuine smile, turn of speech and ability to tell a tale greatly aided his collections.

Even when the words are the same, I’ve found that rural Arkansawyers are apt to pronounce them differently. Take, for example, my profession. Tall building lawyers tend to say “lawyer” as “LOY yer,” for reasons I still fail to understand.

I say “LAW yer,” just like it’s spelled, for reasons that make complete sense to me. Perhaps the more education some folks get, the less they know. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it a fruit salad.

Still yet, I got my own education the other day when some ladies were talking about their harvests from the garden.

“And I think my poke sallet is the finest I’ve made in years,” one woman announced.

“Sounds good,” I said. “Makes me think of that song, “Polk Salad Annie.”

“Darlin’, it’s not ‘polk’ as in ‘folk,’” she gently corrected. “And it’s not actually “salad.” It’s “sallet,” but we’ll forgive ol’ Elvis.”

“Lands yes,” another lady chuckled. “We forgive ol’ Elvis ANYTHING. That fella could carry a tune and shake them hips as all get out!”

If “ain’t but” denotes a small unit of measurement, then there is no higher unit — or compliment — than “all get out.” It doesn’t mean to physically get out of anything, like I need to get out of this column before I hit the edge. It ain’t but 500 words, but LAWyers struggle with brevity now and again. Bless their hearts.