By Liz Johnson, Author
of A Glitter of Gold
I love a good
contraction, and after living in Nashville for six years and writing about
Georgia for the last three, I’ve come to a conclusion: No one uses contractions
more creatively than Southerners. Of course, there’s the standard y’all, a
contraction of you all. Even born and bred Northerners will begin using this
term should they happen to cross the Mason Dixon Line. But the South’s affinity
for contractions doesn’t stop with y’all.
Some of my favorite
Southern contractions include:
- y'ain’t = you all are not
- it’dn’t’ve = it did not have
- y’all’d’ve = you all would have
- (and the kicker)
y’all’d’ve’fI’d’ve = you all would have if I would have
I saw a meme racing
around Facebook recently with a particularly fun contraction and the claim on
the image: “Y’all’d’ve known this if you lived in the South.” It made me think
about how certain things we say a lot about where we’re from.
The way our characters
speak amplifies their setting. It brings their day-to-day to life. Beyond
description, dialogue puts a unique stamp on a story to help create a
fully-realized world.
I love using slang to
enhance my books, and to use it successfully, we have to know four things.
1. Know the
characters. Are they local or transplants? Locals will naturally use
regional phrases. Transplants may have more trouble with them. They may attempt
to use them—but end up using them incorrectly. Or they may end up
misunderstanding a local who is using an unfamiliar phrase. Perhaps your
character has left the small town for the big city, and every y’all rubs
her the wrong way. Each character should interact with slang differently.
2. Know the
location. Not all slang is the same. Terms in Alabama differ from
those in Appalachia. Urban Atlanta is a far cry from rural Georgia. And slang
is certainly not limited to the South. Northern cities like Boston are known
for their thick accents, which translate to the page through slang too. Perhaps
one of my favorite discoveries on a research trip to an English-speaking
province in Canada was a dictionary of Prince Edward Island idioms. If you
haven’t lived in or near the setting of your book, research the specific
location. Talk to people who have. Immerse yourself in the dialogue of the
area, so you can get it right.
3. Know the
timeline. Did you know that Merriam-Webster added more than 1000 new
words to the dictionary last year? Worlds like glamping and welp are
now officially official. The English language changes all the time, which is
why it’s important to make sure the slang we use fits the time period of our
books. In my latest book, A Glitter of Gold, I wrote from the point
of view of a modern young transplant to Savannah as well as a diary from the
1750s. The language in the journal was much different, and I used resources
like https://www.etymonline.com to discover how
and when English words have been used.
4. Know when
to stop. Once you get going with slang, it can be hard to stop. Before
you know it, every other line is a local expression. This can be jarring for
the reader, who may not be from that area. And when it pulls the reader from
the story, it’s doing your book a disservice. Slang is a spice that will add
local flavor but shouldn’t overwhelm the meat of the story.
Liz Johnson is the author of more than a dozen novels, including A Sparkle of
Silver, A Glitter of Gold, The Red Door Inn, Where Two Hearts Meet, and On
Love’s Gentle Shore, as well as a New York Times bestselling novella and a
handful of short stories. She makes her home in Phoenix, Arizona.
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