Rock-EN-ham, NC
The phone on my desk with its tres chic, squishy shoulder perch (I call it "shoulder perch" for lack of a better term because it helps my phone to perch happily there on my shoulder) rang insistently. I was at work, so that meant I had a fifty-fifty chance of hearing an accent of some sort on the other end of the line. It would most likely be a southern accent and I wasn't sure if my name was going to be Honey today, or if it would be the more inventive Sweetie. Then again, it could have been a Dahlin' day. I never really know what the next call holds.
Today was a Honey day, and it was said with one of those sweet, feminine drawls that fairly drips through the phone.
She sounded like one of those fragile, gently-bred, silver-haired grandmothers. The type who, fifty years or so ago, might never want to get caught in public without her white "go-to-town" gloves, a hat, and a small clutch purse... maybe holding a newly laundered hanky for all those noses that run rampant out there. I know, I know! I'll stop describing what I think she might have looked like, because let's face it, I don't really know.
We talked pleasantly for a bit, and then I sat with my pen poised to jot down her address. The street and house number crawled through the line slowly, but without difficulty, though it helped that she spelled the street name for me. Then, we came to the city. Oooohhh, the city.
"It's Rock-en-ham, Enn Cee," she said.
"And that's spelled R-O-C-K-E-N-H-A-M, correct?" I said, already writing it down.
"No, Honey. It's Rock-EN-ham." She said this, not spelling it, just drawing out the EHHNNN so I couldn't possibly misspell it a second time.
"Ummm, okay. So it's R-O-C-K..." I trailed off at this point hoping that she would just naturally pick up where I left off. You see, I've learned not to just assume that I know how people spell their town names. I mean, she could be from a town where they spell phonetically and southern phonics are just different from the ones I know.
She didn't conveniently pick up my trail.
I tried again, "Would you mind spelling that for me, please? I think there's something wrong with..." my ears, I thought... "our connection."
"Sure Honey," she said. "It's Rock-en-ham. R-o-c-k-i-n-g-h-a-m. Rock-EN-ham." She said the last with a satisfied little flourish. I felt kind of silly as I wrote it down. I should have known that ehhnnn is spelled i-n-g.
I must say, I love that I don't have to call overseas to hear an accent foreign to my ears. All I have to do, is pick up my phone with its squishy perch apparatus, and dial Rock-EN-ham, Enn Cee.
