Miker wrote:
<<Twain's HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and thinking surely the
whole narrative isn't slang, so I checked it out. It
is.>>
Then Mario wrote:
"That's not slang, son. It's Southern. None of the characters
is trying to cut clever, either. They speak authentically.
Twain knew how bad the phonetic humorists sounded (they were
his competitors, after all), so he was very careful about
using folksy renderings of speech. I think Huck works much
better in Southern, but it would remain a great book in
Yank."
What is Southern if not slang? What is slang if not a
dialectic veering away from standard english, such as
Southern? Are you saying Southern is an exception to the
"abuse of slang" rule? And if I put across a speech (in a
character) in regional slang is the character necessarily
cutting clever? Can he not be authentic?
--- Charlie Williams
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