CompuServe Messages

.. although it does seem that some people have an affection for that regional speech pattern. The one referred to below is a bit north of the Carolinas: "That particular voice may sound vaguely Southern or Southwestern, but it is specifically Appalachian in origin. It originated in the mountains of West Virginia, in the coal country, in Lincoln county, so far up the hollows that, as the saying went, "they had to pipe in daylight". In the late 1940's and early 1950's this up-hollow voice drifted down … into all phases of American aviation. It was amazing. It was Pygmalion in reverse. Military pilots and then, soon, airline pilots … began to talk in that poker-hollow West Virginia drawl, or as close to it as they could bend their native accents". –Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff. –Jim