Kentucky Three - Text
Subject is white female, born 1918. Although she has little formal education (grade-school only), she is self-educated, well read, highly intelligent. She is a lifelong resident of Carroll County, Kentucky (45 miles northeast of Louisville). Recorded by Rinda Frye 1/11/00 and edited by Paul Meier 1/19/00. You will hear a good example of a pleasant Kentucky country or farm dialect, somewhat softened by having moved from farm life to the small town of Carrollton, and by her many years as wife to the county judge. You will notice, for instance, that this subject speaks with less nasality than is typical of Kentucky farm dialects, and that she is careful to aspirate her "wh" sounds. Running time.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
You milked the cows. You fed the chickens. (They laugh.) You slopped the pigs. (She laughs.) And then you went off to work. W—we raised tobacco—that was the main crop. And we also of course raised a garden. We raised our food. We didn’t have a dairy. You know it was just for your family. Just milk and then you know you had the milk for the pigs. My brother now he--he had a—his own cows, see, so he--we sold the cream. We separated the milk and got the cream and that’s what we sold was the cream. We sold cream and eggs. And my brother had a cow, you know, he was older, two years older than me, and he had a cow, you know, so he had his cream for his spending money, you know, so when he wanted to go somewhere and didn’t have time to milk his cow he would hire me to milk it for him. And th’ only way I could milk, uh, you know you— people take one hand—course we didn’t have milkers then, like they later had. But I couldn’t do it with one hand. I had to put one hand on the—on the tit—yeah, that’s what they call ‘em—and one up above that one—use both of them to get a stream of milk. But he paid me a quarter every time I milked for him. (She laughs.) ‘Course later after they moved away from there and lived down, lived down in Hunter’s Bottom, lived down there, but I was married then. Um, they had milkers in there (She laughs.) and they had lot of cows then, you know, ‘cause they sold the whole milk. ‘Course living out there on a hill there was no milk route there but when they lived, moved to where there was a milk route, well, they sold the whole milk. ‘N it was easier. (Interviewer: “How’d you meet your husband?”) Well uh ‘course we came to Carrolton to get our supplies and he worked in the store, in Carrollton Woods’s hardware and grocery store. And when we’d come to town my mother’d come t’ town to buy groceries and I’d be with her and when we’d go in Woods’s store, well, boy, when she would buy candy—‘course we always bought some candy to take home—and he would just be putting that candy in her sack ‘n not even looking to see how much he’s putting in there—he’d be looking at me all the time. (Interviewer: “How old were you?”) Oh I don’t know how old I was then. (She laughs.) Well I guess I’s, I had to be about twenty ‘cause I was twenty-two when I married, but oh we’d get the biggest sack a’ candy.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY STEVE GONABE 6 APRIL, 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG