Listening in on Dialogue

Listening in on Dialogue

I went to visit the casinos this week. It is a terrible place to try to hear--much less--make notes on such things. But, I will have to do my best. Since I live 15 minutes from any humans, it is the only time we have gone to civilization lately.

1. I listened to the check-in of my husband and the hotel clerk. My husband is very polite and so was she. Anyone could have written that dialogue. Nothing to note except the smoothness and almost “overly” niceness of the two. The humor in this is that in his everyday life, every other word can be a curse word. He’s always screaming at the injustices on the news. (polite employee and customer talk.)

2. I stopped to chat with one of the maids.

“Hello,” I said. “How are you?”

“No habla Engleesh.” She smiles and bobs her head in agreement.

“Have a nice day.” I said as she turns and jabbers in Spanish to her co-maid. They both laugh. I think they are making fun of me. If they were, they certainly made me feel like it.
(Person trying to be nice and cheery and being made to feel like people are talking behind their back. Not a good feeling.)


3. Two little girls are sitting with their mother while the father checks in. They are playing hopscotch on the marble tiles.

“Sara, you stepped on a line.”

“Did not.”

“Did!” The unnamed child turned to the mother. “She’s cheatin’”

The mother jerked Sara to the floor and told her not to get up. “You nothing but trouble, girl. You sit there til I tell ya different.”

(Parent blaming older child for problems between siblings.)
(Parent embarassing children in public when discipline should be a private matter.)

4. An old man is playing a slot machine and his chain smoking wife is sitting beside him.
Cha-ching. Cha-ching. “Dang machine. All they do is take my money.”

“Herbert, be quiet. I can‘t hear your mumbling. If you want to talk, speak up.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘I can‘t hear your mumbling. If you want to talk, speak up.’”

“What?” he yells.

The woman turns to me, and blows cigarette smoke in my face. “Damned old man! Can’t hear him half the time and none of the time in this place,” she yells at me. “All these machines do is take my money.”
I get up and leave.

(Spouses who have been married a long time don't always listen to each other, their hearing is on the blink, and the person who loves smoking in the one last smoking cave left on earth.)

5. I go to the swimming area where there are lots of kids and moms. Many conversations are going on and none of them seems to be in complete sentences. Lots of yelling, laughing, and splashing. One child is told to get out.

“No! I’m havin’ fun.”

“It’s time to get ready for dinner.”

“No!” He swims off where his mother can’t touch him and begins to ignore the mother.

“Come back here…right this minute. You will be sorry if you are not out of that pool in three minutes!”

The child continues to play and ignore his mother.

The father comes in and starts yelling at his wife. “Why the Hell haven’t you gotten him up to the room? I’ve been waitin’ on you for 20 minutes.”

“He won’t get out,” says the mother.

“He won’t get out?” says the father as if he can’t grasp the idea. “Tim, get over here. NOW!” The boy doesn’t acknowledge his father at all.

The father dives into the water with his clothes on. He swims to the kid who is trying to get away, but is to small not to be overpowered. He grabs the kid and pulls him to the side and throws him up on the ledge where the mother puts a towel around the boy.

The rest is not a pretty sight. The dad gets out, soaking wet, grabs the kid and starts to beat the tar out of him and curses like a streak of blue lightening while pulling him toward the door. As he goes through the door, he turns to his wife. “Get your ass up to the room, too. NOW!”

(Children who are not disciplined correctly when young, misbehave in public.)
(Abusive spouse and father.)

6. When we ate at the buffet, the family next to us was Cajun. They spoke with a lyrical, mesmerizing quality. I could understand much of it, but not all. I loved sitting there and just eaves dropping. Their speech was primarily a mix of French and some colloquial low white English.

I went to a bridge party years ago and heard a guest speaking. I asked her if she was from Breaux Bridge, LA. She said, “No, I’m from Catahoule.”

“Oh,” I said. “You speak just like a couple that played for Buffalo Bills when we did and they were from Breaux Bridge.”

She laughed. “Catahoule is only 14 miles from Breaux Bridge.”

(Dialects across the US are quite special and strange to some who do not hear it everyday.)

7. Years ago, I noted when I married a guy from south Arkansas, the dialect, the cadence and the colloquialism were much different that where I lived in Little Rock. For instance, they would say “I carried Sister to the grocery.” and “We’ll be back from Memphis at dark thirty.” “Do you wanta go to church s’ev’nin’?” “Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise.”
"You go about four mile down the road that away."

(Older folks seem to have a language all their own. I find myself wanting to say, You didn't carry them to the store; you DROVE them to the store. And, following everyone around putting S-es on the words they use in the singular that is plural")

8. Here is a conversation I have had a few times over the years.
“Where’s your homework?”
Tony shrugs his shoulders.
“That’s no answer. You wanna answer me or do you wanna call your momma?”
“In my book.”
“Get it out.”
He scrambles around to find a dirty folded piece of paper.
“Read your answer for number 12, please.”
“Didn’t git that fer”
“How far did ya’ get?”
“To two.”
“To two? We did those two in class yesterday.”
“Yep.”

(Classroom Lingo)

9. & 10. Okay, maybe I’m cheating here, but I think this is a good observation. Rather, it is a point I used to teach in speech class.

We all possess many levels of speaking. For instance, if you are going to give a speech in front of the whole school, you will use more formal speech and gestures. If you are called to the principal’s office, most students will speak very little. In the classroom to me, the kids will be freer in their speech than they might be in Mr. Tollenaar’s class because he thinks a quiet class is a good class. When the students go down to practice football, their cadence, their subject matter, and their language slips into a much less formal level of speech. With parents, children and teens use different patterns, different words, different ideas than they do at school or on the football field. And, then, of course, all students speak very carefully at church and watch what they say. When we are with our best friends and away from the general population, we are at our lowest level of language usage. Therefore, the place and the audience to whom we are speaking makes the difference in the cadences of speech, the terms of speech we use, the crudity of our speech and slang we use.

Examples:

Situation: Ben and his friend Jim work at Dairy Queen with Leroy whom they do not like and are always picking on. Ben called Leroy a bad name. Leroy told him to stop picking on him. Ben gets in Leroy's face and threatens him while pushing him back into the grill.

Parent-child: "Mom, I didn't do anything. Leroy just dissed me when I walked by minding my own business. Then he wanted to fight. But, I just walked away. I'm did just like you tell to do."
Friends: "Why in God name didn't you bash in that b@#$%^&'s face? #$%^&*(! He had no right to say that to you even though you did trip Leroy and stomped his head. $%^&*(."
Workplace: "Leroy should contain his horseplay for outside the office and customer area. I may have to report his behavior to the boss. It just doesn't look good."
Talking to the Preacher: Rev. Brown. I need you to pray for Leroy Johnson. He is just not acting like a Christian. I try to help him, but he needs God's help. Jesus needs to spread his glory and forgiveness on that boy.
Football Practice: "Hey, Steve, Jim. Come here. Leroy done $%^&* me off. We gonna bust his lazy brown a-- out there today. Ya' with me, guys? Hell, yes! Let's go get the %^&* !D@#$."