Georgia Two - Text
The subject is a 59-year-old white male born in Macon, Georgia and educated in
Georgia and Tennessee. He is a history professor at a land grant university and
has lived in the south all his life. The subject's resonant placement is forward
and slightly nasal. He has a definitive drawl, elongating vowels and diphthongs
for emphasis, and a variable treatment of r. Notice his vowels in words like bath, my, and his use of the liquid /u/ in words like tune.
Recorded 2005, by Daydrie Hague, Associate Editor for Alabama.
Running time 00:05:36.
TRANSCRIPTION
I’ve been teaching history at Auburn for the past 30 years. I went to Emery to do my Ph.D. and graduated back in the 1970s after doing my Bachelor’s degree at the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, which is a well-known Episcopal college --I think it’s well-known-- for about a thousand students. I was from a small town in Georgia, but went to a-- a boarding school in Atlanta, where the chaplain was an Episcopal clergyman. So he was really on me to go there to college, and so, despite my parents’ wish that I go to Emery for undergraduate work, I decided to go to Sewanee instead; just to sort of defy them, as people are wont to do at that age. It was a great choice; it was a wonderful school, and I did end up getting to go to Emery, and came here afterwards and have been here ever since. Lo, these (uh) many decades, and while it was very different from Sewanee and Emery, (uh) I’ve been very happy here and have really enjoyed being here, because I think Auburn is very special place, even, I’d daresay, unique, in terms of the atmosphere and of the relations between the students and the professors. And of course, I can’t complain, it’s not that far from my home. And over the years it’s made it possible for me to be near family both in Georgia and in Alabama, which I think is very, very nice, when one’s close to one’s family, as am I. So I’m always glad to have that opportunity, and who knows? I could have gotten a job far away and not had these opportunities at being so close to family. And, believe it or not, Auburn over the decades has grown, not so much in numbers of students --there were about 16,000 when I came, and 22[000] or so now-- but in terms of what we can do and places we can go. And, always, especially my first year here, I kept telling myself, “Olivia, Atlanta is less than two hours away,” meaning there was a world outside. And this is very important when you are a single professor and you need a little social life. Because (uh) it probably is not wise to (um) play with undergraduates, and so it was good to get away to Atlanta, and (uh) get to be with friends over there, when I had (uh) a desire at that time in life to have a wild old time and (uh) go-- So I could just go to Atlanta and get all of that out of my system and then come here, and (um) go to McDonalds or something more tame.