Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
Several folks who follow this regular series, my Pique the Geek one, and my Popular Culture one know that I often use obsolete or archaic spellings for certain, common words. This is intentional.
Perhaps it is no longer standard English to use these old words, but neither is it incorrect to do so. I do so partly out of respect whence came I (“whence” is “from where” in a single word, so if you say “from whence” it is sort of like saying “from from where”, sort like folks calling MSDSs “Material Data Safety Sheet Sheets” when they say “MSDS sheets”), but I am not being completely honest.
Another reason that I use them is to try to grab the attention of my readers. I find it interesting to read pieces from contributors who are sort of off the beaten track. I do not know if it works well for me or not. I do believe that my readers realize that I do this not out of ignorance for standard English, but sort of in protest of the conformity to it.
Am I an nonconformist? As Gibbs would say, “Ya think!?”
Following is a list of words that I often use that are not standard, but not incorrect, and then some recollections that I have for some of the old talk that NEVER was really correct. This is quite subjective, but here we go.
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