* * * * *

The old grandees of Charleston were usually sent to Oxford or Cambridge
for an education and English tradition still remains, I fancy, the
foundation for what Charleston social life is to-day. I thought at first
that Charlestonians spoke like the English, but later came to the
conclusion that there is in the pronunciation of some of them a quality
resembling a very faint brogue--a brogue such as might be possessed by a
cultivated Irishman who had moved to England in his boyhood, and had
been educated there. The "vanishing _y_" of tidewater Virginia is also
used by some Charlestonians, I am told, though I do not remember hearing
it.

Generalizations on the subject of dialectic peculiarities are dangerous,
as I have good reason to know. Naturally, not all Charlestonians speak
alike. I should say, however, that the first _a_ in the words "Papa"
and "Mama" is frequently given a short sound, as _a_ in "hat"; also
that many one-syllable words are strung out into two. For instance,
"eight" is heard as "ay-et" ("ay" as in "gray"); "where" as "whey-uh,"
or "way-uh," and "hair" as "hay-uh." "Why?" sometimes sounds like "Woi?"
Such words as "calm" and "palm" are sometimes given the short _a_: "cam"
and "pam"--which, of course, occurs elsewhere, too. The name "Ralph" is
pronounced as "Rafe" (_a_ as in "rate")--which I believe is Old English;
and the names "Saunders" and "Sanders" are pronounced exactly alike,
both being called "Sanders." Tomatoes are sometimes called "tomatters."
Two dishes I never heard of before are "Hopping John," which is rice
cooked with peas, and "Limping Kate," which is some other rice
combination. What we, in the North, call an "ice-cream freezer" becomes
in Charleston an "ice-cream _churn_." "Good morning" is the salutation