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This writer disagrees. “Gonna” and its like tell the
reader that the speaker is a country person, who is not precise in his or
her speech, and is perhaps uneducated—but the speaker could be from almost
anywhere. There’s nothing about “gonna” that suggests a Southern voice.
The dropped “G” is a useful way to indicate that a
Southerner is speaking. Readers today are missing a great deal if they
don’t read Mark Twain and the many other writers on the attached list
because they find the dropped “G” “a chore” to read.
I went through books by each of the writers on the list
attached, to learn how they dealt with Southern accents. My all-time
favorite Southern book is To Kill a Mockingbird.
Here’s a page where Harper Lee uses the dropped “G”:
“I helped the engineer for a while,” said Dill,
yawning.
“In a pig’s ear you did, Dill. Hush,” said Jem.
“What’ll we play today?"
“Tom and Sam and Dick,” said Dill. “Let’s go in the
front yard.” Dill wanted the Rover Boys because there were three
respectable parts. He was clearly tired of being our character man.
“I’m tired of those,” I said. I was tired of playing
Tom Rover, who suddenly lost his memory in the middle of a picture show
and was out of the script until the end, when he was found in Alaska.
“Make us up one, Jem,” I said.
“I’m tired of makin’ em up.”
Our first days of freedom, and we were tired. I
wondered what the summer would bring.
We had strolled to the front yard, where Dill stood
looking down the street at the dreary face of the Radley Place.
“I—smell—death,” he said. “I do, I mean it,” he said, when I told him to
shut up.
“You mean when somebody’s dyin’ you can smell it?”
“No, I mean, I can smell somebody and tell if they’re
gonna die. An old lady taught me how.” Dill leaned over and sniffed me.
“Jean—Louise—Finch, you are going to die in three days.”
“Dill if you don’t hush I’ll knock you bowlegged. I
mean it, now—“
“Yawl hush,” growled Jem, “you act like you believe in
Hot Steams.”
“You act like you don’t,” I said.
“What’s a Hot Steam?” asked Dill.
“Haven’t you ever walked along a lonesome road at night
and passed by a hot place? “ Jem asked Dill. “A Hot Steam’s somebody who
can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an’ if you
walk through him, when you die you’ll be one too, an’ you’ll go around
at night suckin’ people’s breath—“
Note that Lee doesn’t use the dropped “G” except when
one of her characters is speaking—not in the thoughts of her characters.
I don’t think the book would be the same without the dropped “G”.
Works Cited:
Roerden, Chris. Don’t Murder Your Mystery,
Rockhill, S.C.: Bella Rosa Books, 2006. 215.
Lee, Harper. To Kill
a Mockingbird. New York: Lippincott, 1960. 43.
A List of Southern Writers Who Use the “Dropped G”
With or Without the Apostrophe
Toni Cade Bambara:
Punchin, walkin, touchin, etc.
Charles W.
Chestnutt:
Hearin’, hangin’, eatin’, layin’, etc.
Alice Childress:
Nothin’, achin’, beginnin’, etc.
Sarah Barnwell Elliott:
Travelin’,
restin’, sellin’, etc.
Ellen Glasgow:
Evenin’, visitin’, gettin’,
etc.
Jewelle Gomez:
Sleepin’, doin’, leavin’
Nancy Hale:
Doin’, cuttin’, goin’
Zora Neale Hurston:
Comin’, jumpin’,
wonderin’, fishin’, tendin’
Harper Lee
Readin’, goin’, runnin’,
comin’, tryin’
Flannery O’Connor:
Gruntin’, rootin’, groanin’,
waitin’, etc.
Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn uses the dropped G when
Jim is speaking:
Bein’, hoverin’, makin’, talkin’, etc.
*Note: In
a note, Twain explains that he “painstakingly” used various dialects.
Michael Weaver:
Talkin, nothin, tryin, etc.
Shirley Anne Williams:
Beatin’, comin’, tryin’, etc.
Darryl Wimberley:
“Conjugatin’,
breakin’, happenin’
Frank Yerby:
Settin’, tryin’, gettin’, beggin’,
etc.
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