University Times

Whether it's "y'all" or "you guys" or "yunz," the English language seems desperate for a way to distinguish second person plural from second person singular, says Rodney Eatman, professor of theatre arts and speech at Pitt's Johnstown campus (UPJ).

In the southern United States, the locals have settled on the colorful "y'all," while in the West and Midwest the preference is for "you guys," never mind that everyone within sight may be of the feminine gender.

Western Pennsylvania's stab at second person plural has produced one of the most distinctive words of all, a word that nobody is really even quite sure how to spell. That, of course, is "yunz." Although "y'all" and "you guys" are socially acceptable in their regions and seldom raise an eyebrow, western Pennsylvania's "yunz" carries a stigma of unintelligence, which Eatman finds troubling. "Yunz" to him simply is a bit of regional speech and has nothing to do with a person's intelligence.

"You hear a thick Gomer Pyle [accent] and you assume, because television has taught you that Gomer is not exactly a smart guy, that an empty head is indicated by the accent," Eatman says of regional speech. "That is not true at all." A native of Texas who has spent considerable time in Louisiana and Michigan, Eatman has been studying the regional speech of western Pennsylvania since his arrival at UPJ 20 years ago. He says he has meet many wonderful and intelligent people throughout western Pennsylvania who use the word "yunz," and does not know why so many natives of the region detest the word and look down on people who use it.

"What we're talking about is regional speech," Eatman says. "And regional speech is spoken everywhere. The standard that you hear is actually sort of an artificial thing that has been developed by career people." Television reporters probably started out with very regional accents, according to Eatman, but were coached in an "idealized, general American standard" speech. He said networks coach the standard because people from western Pennsylvania might have difficulty understanding a reporter with a Southern accent or people from California a reporter with a New England accent.

Eatman's own, natural accent is a thick Texas drawl. Years in the theatre and teaching speech have drilled that accent out of him, except when he is talking to his father back in Texas. Then he instinctively drifts back into it.

Falling into old habits of speech is a very common occurrence, according to Eatman. It is not at all unusual to hear someone from the South who has lived in the North for a period of time speak without a Southern accent, at least until they return home for a visit. Then the "y'alls" and other elements of Southern speech tend to return.

Eatman recalls a student he once had at UPJ whose speech was near the American standard. Then one day she called her mother from his office. He was stunned by the difference. He could barely recognize what she was saying. When the student got off the phone, she saw the expression on his face and told him her family was Pennsylvania Dutch and what he had heard was the way they normally spoke with each other.

"I think there is just a natural instinct to want to homogenize," says Eatman of such changes in people's speech. "If you perceive that your speech is different, subconsciously at least you start trying to modify it." Ethnic background plays a role in regional speech and is especially important in western Pennsylvania because the region has been such a melting pot. Eatman thinks a lot of people came to the region without knowing English and never received any formal instruction in the language.

"A lot of the things I hear in western Pennsylvania," he says, "some of the variances on pronunciation, are probably reflective of the fact a person's forebears came here not knowing the language and probably were using books to try to learn it." Because they used books, many western Pennsylvanians learned to pronounce English words according to the way the letters were pronounced in their own language. A western Pennsylvania accent is a real mix. It includes German, Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Irish, Russian, English, French and all the other nationalities that emigrated to the region.

"The 'th' is a problem around here," Eatman points out. "People say things like 'boy and girl,' instead of 'the boy and the girl.' Putting the tongue forward under the teeth is a foreign move for people who are of Eastern European background and African." As a result of that foreign movement, "fifth" has become "fift" and "sixth" has become "sixt." But, for some reason Eatman does not understand, "fourth" remains "fourth." As proof that the use of regional speech is not indicative of intelligence, Eatman says he has worked with extensively with people in the health care professions over the years and notices a tendency in western Pennsylvania nurses and doctors to pronounce "anesthesia" as "anestesia" without the "h." Even with the English who came to the Pittsburgh area, there were differences in the pronunciation of words from the upper class gentlemen who commanded Fort Pitt (whose presence Eatman hears in the use of the expression "Oh") and the cockneys who served as foot soldiers, and worked as foremen in the mills and mines.

Regional speech has a lot to do with the way facial muscles are used, according to Eatman. In Texas and the Midwest, the tendency is to spread the muscles very wide.

"In Texas, I think, people smile to excess," he says. "They're not necessarily all that nice, but they have been trained, for whatever cultural reasons, to smile. People pick up what they are around." Every variant on idealized American speech does something to the vowel sounds, according to Eatman. Western Pennsylvanians tend to pinch their vowels, he notes. It is due to the pinching that "steel mill" is pronounced "still mill," "failed" is pronounced "felled." Many western Pennsylvanians too seem to have an inability to fuse "d" with "n't" to create the contraction "dn't." Rather than going through the entire sound, according to Eatman, the tendency is to turn such words as "wouldn't, couldn't and didn't" into "wouln't, couln't and din't." The speech term for such a lack of fusion is "glottal shock," Eatman says. The speaker comes right up to the point of fusion, and then there is a grab that shortens the word. The cockney accent of Eliza (or Liza) Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" is a classic example. The western Pennsylvania tendency to take short cuts with words and grammar also is evident in the fact that "to be" is often left out of a sentence. Instead of saying something "needs to be fixed" or "My hair needs to be cut," Pittsburghers tend to say "needs fixed" and "My hair needs cut." Another interesting use of language can be seen in the interchange of "leave" and "let." According to Eatman, the interchange is "very colloquial, very down home. But to anybody who is not that used to it is kind of a shock." Also shocking to someone from outside of western Pennsylvania is the word "gum band." When he first arrived at UPJ in 1977, Eatman was asked by a colleague for a "gum band." He had no idea what the person wanted until he opened the drawer of his desk and the rubber bands in the tray were pointed out to him.

On the other hand, Eatman can recall his mother in Texas telling him: "We carried your grandmother out to eat." Such a use of the word "carried" seems completely foreign to a western Pennsylvanian, but in Texas it means: "We took your grandmother out to eat." Along with usage and pronunciation, the third element of regional speech, according to Eatman, is the melody, which to Northern ears probably is most evident in the South.

"One of the things you hear most in western Pennsylvania is the tendency not to go up on the end of a sentence that is a question," Eatman says. "They [western Pennsylvanians] come down instead of going up." In pointing out some of the speech peculiarities that he has noticed in western Pennsylvanians, Eatman is quick to emphasize that he is not making fun of the region's speech or its people.

"I don't think people should feel that there is a snobbery associated with good speech," Eatman says. "The ethnic angle is very, very strong in western Pennsylvania. Just a glance at the telephone book shows the diversity. Even for people who are several generations removed from their immigrant ancestors, the sounds remain and come out in various ways."

–Mike Sajna