Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET This, That and the Other by MARGARET DICKSON A map by Joshua Katz reflecting regional dialects. Over the years some columns I have written for Up & Coming Weekly have generated lots of response, some have generated some comments and some got no reaction at all from readers. Common sense would tell us that politics, sex and religion would get readers agitated more often than blander topics, but the most response I have had in over a decade of columns were reactions to my musings on English grammar. Yes, you read that correctly. English grammar. Readers have convinced me that there are plenty of English-language lovers and defenders out there, including moi! Another English aficionado is a 28-year-old graduate student at North Carolina State University. Joshua Katz, a New Jersey native, is working on his PhD. in statistics. His fascination with regional dialects led to a class project involving online maps that has, in an evolving use of our English language, "gone viral." The News and Observer of Raleigh reports that online maps illustrating speech patterns across the United States garnered an astounding 30 million hits the first week the project was online, overwhelming the server and crashing the site. Now, that is a strong reaction to English! Katz's project is fascinating not only for its content but for the way he displays it in maps of the United States that show clearly how people in different parts of the country use different words for the same object, event or idea. Here are some of the differences illustrated on the maps. If you live in North Carolina and want a carbonated drink, you will probably ask for a "soda." In faraway North Dakota, you would have a "pop." If you want a rich, yummy dairy concoction in Fayetteville, you want a milkshake. In Massachusetts, you would have a frappe. I learned that myself the summer I waited on tables in a very chichi yacht club in the Bay State and had to make them in the kitchen. Since we are all watering our plants in the summer heat, we are probably using what most of the country calls a spigot. In the South, we spell it that way but pronounce it "spicket." And speaking of water, in our neck of the woods, we get a drink from a water fountain, but in California, they do the same at a drinking fountain and in Wisconsin, they sip from a bubbler. Intriguing stuff. I would love to hear your thoughts on Joshua Katz's terrific class project. I am betting you are going to become one of his growing number of fans. ••• If you have glimpsed me riding around in Station Wagon # 6 — or is it # 7? — lately, I was probably laughing out loud all by myself. I have been listening to an audio book by another strong and opinionated woman, Jill Conner Browne, author of the Sweet Potato Queen books and the head Queen herself. Browne's books are not, shall we say, family fare. In other words, I could not be listening to it if I were driving an after-school carpool, but they are entertaining, wise in the ways of the world and about the complex relationships between men and women, and often hysterically funny. A few examples. "What if, when you woke up in the morning, ALL you had LEFT was what you had thanked God for the night before?" "If there exists in this universe anything more infuriating and crazy-making than a man, I don't know what it is, thank you, and I don't want to know." "Hate people on an individual basis only — you must actually get to know someone at least slightly before you can properly hate him or her." And my own favorite. "Remember. Pretty and handsome do not last. Dumb does. Fortunately, so does smart." MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. FIGHT +DWH PRVTXLWRHV" )LJKW EDFN *HW ULG RI WKHP ZLWK 0RVTXLWR 6TXDG WKH PRVW WUXVWHG SURIHVVLRQDO PRVTXLWR HOLPLQDWLRQ IRU HYHU\GD\ RXWGRRU OLYLQJ THE BITE trial offers, first spray $49 $69 1/2 acre or less Regular Price $69-$89 1/2 acre TO 1 ACRE Regular Price $119-$139 910-779-2656 MosquitoSquad.com 9HWHUDQ RZQHG DQG RSHUDWHG ••• ©OLB MSF_6252_F_003 This from the department of grandmotherly wisdom. When former First Lady Barbara Bush, wife of George H. Bush and mother of George W. Bush, was recently asked whether she thought another of her sons, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, should run for president, she responded. "He's by far the best qualified man, but no, I really don't. I think it is a great country. There are a lot of great families … There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we have had enough Bushes." Guess who has the best political instincts in that family? 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. No Bugs. No Bites. No Kidding. First time customers only. 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