The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-03-04
NEWSPAPERS OPINION
HILLBILLIES

We were asked today to review new book 1t
was the second book that this editor has sent us III
a month. and he wrote very tatterng little note
about our familiarity with mountain folKs. lie
asked that we comment on the dialect and 1oik
beliefs described in the book, and WoVe IN thaC
| trite and hackneyed sentence about tine PureS'
Anglo-Saxon blood in America, that Is always sup
posed to 1atter and placate us hbllhes after some
down-the-country writer or Yankee soclologlst mas
presented us as the most ignorant and archalc
group in this nation.
Surely we are familiar with mountain folk. 1t
hurts lot to recall how many years we've been
living in sight of the Grandfather mountain, ana
our 'steenth cousin, Jim Swanson, is trying to COL
Ilect a couple of dollars from us to help build
monument to a "grandsir' who preceded us IN this
county by some five generations. Our knowledge
of mountain folk and dialect is first hand, and we
expect to take issue with the writer every time ne
says the mountaineer is "quaint," "Elizabethan'
"Chaucerian," archaic" or 'the purest Anglo
Saxon blood in America"
If some writer on mountain life would only READ
through one tax list in any mountain county ana
note the German, French, Irish, Scotch, and even
Scandinavian or Swiss names, the above pretty
theory would be knocked higher than a cooked hat.
visited in company with u.s. the schools in Avery
county He commented at length on the name
"Wiseman." 1t was he stated pure Anglo-Saxon
and he reminded us of the Witan and Harold, the
last of the Saxon kings. We went to spend the
night with Mr.. and Mrs. Robert Wiseman on Toe
river That evening, Mr. Wiseman remarked that
his grandfather, who was buried on his farm, was
the ancestor of all the Wisemans in the county.
n he WAIc-
man." concluded the story. But it did not disturb
the theory.
The dialect of the mountaineer is not one whit
different from the dialect in other sections of
North Carolina In fact it is not half as broad as
is that spoken on the banks and in the Sound coun
try near the coast Neither of the prettiest bal
lads in collection we have was heard one week
in .Pineolt in Avery county and the next on the
Scuppernong river right where it flows into the
Albemarle Sound. The Avery singer was named
Galloway, and the Eastern singer was named
Cooper
A phlologist who visited US to study mountain
dialect few months ago, raved on about the
Shakespearian speech he heard in Lenoir. An ell
DERBY man remarked in his presence that quietus'
should be put the antics of some children. The
student of languages said that quetus hadn't been
IN coloqulal use since shakespeare Wnlcn Is mani
fest nonsense. 1t is doubtless used in every COM
munity in this country, is perfectly good word
and not archaic in any sense of the much abused
word
All of this means, that while hbillies class
a great deal more interesting and attractive
than their low-and prototypes, they aren't nearly
so different as the writer on mountain life would
have you think, and that Lemon isn't in the back
woods, that family doesn't speak dialect, isn't
archaic or quaint and that we're little sensitive
about this being considered hillbiy anyway
Maud NIinsh Sutton in Caldwell Record.