Yes'm.

"Harry, darlin' boy - you look like somethin' that's been rode hard and put up wet." is Western as well.
Are you saying you're offended by dialect? LisB asked me the other night why I used (and she made some references to spellings I'm pretty sure I've never used) why I, could say thus-and-so, but she got metaphorically swatted down for the same.
My only response to her (at least somewhat passive-aggressive question) was that I don't make the rules, and that if I offend someone, I'd love to hear it, apologize, and move on.
A couple of my Southern friends write to me in dialect or accent or intonation...I can't say I grasp the precise meanings of your differentiation (more due to my thick head than your good explanation).
I do talk in regional inflections at home, all the way from East Indian to local Westuhn to Cockney, which is hard to type out.
Please let me know if Ah've offended you. ;-)

Ack! May have been my hearing was wrong since Lis's question. Oh, yes; this area's 'Western' is heavily influenced by Texans; our local dialects/intonations are varied and often strong.
I am a natural mimic; always have been. Ah spend any time around any different language patterns, and I pick them up. I am an incurable copy-cat; so glad I hadn't offended you!
I had actually speaking to a mentor about how to type regional speaking sounds... ;-)
I am obviously more of a hack, but "God saays, dees ees a Goood ting to get better at! You must practice!"
(In my house, God is almost always East Indian; don't ask me why.)

Thanks, LisB, for you concern about Harry. He may be taking his night shift on the front porch -- which he has demanded to do everywhere I've lived since I adopted him -- a bit too seriously in this heat. I'll keep him in for a few days and see if his appetite returns. Which it probably will if I mention that, otherwise, we'll be going to the VET. (Best regards to you and to Willie and Wallace.)

I think that's known as perfect pitch. Congratulations.

I know you weren't preaching. I was.

=D

;-) I hear that! I love words and tone and vocal inflections and melodies!

Kind of you to say so, Wendy.
G' night.

Yeah I like this.

One of my buddies was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War.

During boot camp in the states he talked about sitting around the campfire somewhere in Georgia and two guys were talking politics and the Georgian spoke up and said:

Now that there...that there sounded like a communism. Now I aint sayin yer a communism. I'm just sayin you sound like a communism.

In Germany he recalled being in a bar and when the waitress came by for orders a Southerner spoke up:

Spleckin the English there Frauline.

My buddy told me that the German Girls just loved the Southerners. hahahaha

TV has really stolen something. Intentionally of course. The drawls of the South and the nasal tones of the North seem to have abated.

I wonder if that is why Palin does so well?

And I wonder if that may be the reason that--except for Obama--the Southern intonations are not more popular. Bush and Clinton fared well even though the former has to have been the single worst Presidential speaker I have ever witnessed.

But Obama will sneak in those Southern intonations from time to time when it suits him. For a guy raised in Hawaii for chrissakes.

I told you over a year ago I could hear the South in your writings.

We have not become completely homogenized linguistically.

Which is a good thing.

Also, isn't the identification of a dialect often dependent on how the dominant power group speaks ? Since "dialect" usually has a pejorative meaning, isn't calling a language a dialect a way to undermine the value of the group who speaks it ? Is Eubonics a dialect or a language ? Is English spoken by a Scot a dialect?

Kali --
In answer to your questions:

1) According to rule#12 of the capitalization guide used by the University of South Carolina, I should have capitalized "Southern": http://www.sc.edu/webpresence/editorial_guide/capitalization.html
I'll see what some y(Y)ankee style guidelines have to say.... OK: three others say yes, one says no.

2) I'm not sure that the identification of a dialect has much to do with how the dominant power group speaks, but the value judgement -- positive or negative -- that is attached to it obviously does.

3) As to whether or not the term "dialect" is a pejorative: I think that depends on which dialect is being considered, where (what subjective feelings do those who are considering that dialect have about that place? ) and by whom (is the person doing the considering an outsider or an insider, educated or not?) Etc..

For example, as an outsider, I am charmed by the dialect (as if there is only one) of Scotland, the intonation of which sounds musical to me. I have a positive response to it, although I can barely understand a word that is being said until I have allowed myself to listen to it in beta wave mode. But, I suspect that urban/educated Scots who speak their version of BBC (aka Southern British English) may find the dialect of their countrymen grating as a reflection of sociolect, which is, to some degree, dependent on level of education/sophistication. That is the very reason I am rubbed the wrong way by the pervasive belief that country/less well-educated southern speech is "it," in terms of southern speak, in the eyes of the world at large.

4) Ebonics -- I think -- is not dialect per se, but an ethnolect first, a sociolect second and a dialect last.

DD --

When I cited Stephen Colbert as a southerner who has no discernible accent but does have discernible intonations and phrasing typical of a particular SC sociolect, I should have added Charlie Rose, who does have a discernible, if faint North Carolina accent -- although it is muted by his sociolect -- and Nancy Pelosi, whose "southern voice" mine resembles a lot because we both had a formative elementary school experience in Maryland.

Common denominator: not a single dropped consonant among them; on the contrary, considerable intonation emphasis on crystal clear consonants.

I would think that certain "mistakes" are part of a regional dialect. For example: Many people in my area say "supposebly" instead of "supposedly." I hear it as a mistake. Within a certain social group, that is the way it's said. Another phrase,"all's I know" is widespread. Again, I hear it as a mistake, yet it's common in the region.

It just occurred to me that one pronunciation denotes a Southern accent/dialect/sorry I can't get it all yet for me...and that's the pronunciation of *didn't*.
I don't know if I can type the pronunciations, but it comes out: 'did-dent', rather than 'DIDent'.
Hear what I mean?
Jan Foster Greenberg, I think her name is, the Constitutional expert often on PBS, plus Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers, et.al., pronounce that contraction the 'did-dunt' way.

Then there's the Ghetto-speak while swiveling one's head on a still neck, much like a dashboard dog with a spring for a neck:
"No I DI-NT!" Man; I just hate that!
;-)

word

So ees a might under the weathah....Ayuh.

C

I've got some weight I'd love to give him! Would 20 pounds do it?

Ha! Is that Mainespeak, C?

Having been born and raised in West Palm Beach, FL, most people that hear me assume I'm from New York.

That changed for a while when I attended boarding school in GA as a teenager. Within 2 days, "hey" and "I'm fixin'to" became a part of my vocabulary.

Now I sound like a geographically confused New Yorker.

Aw, jeez, Kali; do me a favor and let me know what word signifies? I am so behind on these terms.
I haven't a clue when someone yells Crickets! at me, for instance. I think, "Is he calling for an exterminator? LOL!

Ha! Thank you for the offer, C'Ville -- but he could, after all, get some if not all of of those pounds closer to home (although, thankfully, not as many as he could have had last year.) Nonetheless, I've made an appointment for him on Thursday, as well as for Hermione who seems to have been stung by a wasp and is limping about, without being willing to allow me to examine her paw to remove it. Only Tess remains impervious to the more lethal aspects of southern summer -- draped on her garden wall, in the shade, with her faithful servant delivering fresh bowls of water with ice cubes in them, several times a day.

Hey Seashell (and '"hey" to the driving dog).
I don't know about you, but I am always amazed when people refer to coastal Florida as Southern. It's just not. The interior of the state -- maybe -- but not the coasts.
Btw, I like West Palm and I could shoot myself for the house (with rental cottage that would now support me) that got away while I dithered about making that move.
Georgia? My sister has lived in Atlanta for thirty years. I lived briefly near Chastain. It was an easy city in which to find a place and great, interesting friends. But, unlike my sister, I could not adjust to being in the car, all the time. I see from your avatar that you and the puppy do not suffer from similar car, 75/85, perimeter aversion. ;-)
Thank you for dropping by... or beyeh, as you prefer.

Oh. My. God!

The driving puppy and I most certainly have an aversion to anything outside of the perimeter. We just don't go there!

We live in Decatur (as well as Florida) and almost everything we need is right here. We can walk to Decatur Square and all the shops and restaurants. Those are on the lower, sidewalk level and lofts, condos and apartments are built on the upper levels. All of the eateries have outdoor dining, including water dishes for the puppies. For downtown Atlanta, it's less than a mile to MARTA and 6 miles to downtown from there.

Ah, rats! Ya just couldn't keep The Pledge, could ya, Brew? ;-)

My mother named us all with 2-syllable names:

Ja--yan (Jan)

Ay--yan (Anne)

Ji--yum (Jim)

The only exception was, "Rae" -- Hard to stretch that one out, but she managed to make it Raaaaay.

That is Richmond, Southern.

You would naiveh leye to me, Eyem sureh.
(WHY does copper work -- chemically?)

Was it Victoria's deal? That's when kids began to be considered tiny adults.
How many times was I told, "The Queen just rolled over in her grave as you said that!"
Did every kid hear it for generations?
Grammar and diction still are the great Class Indicators, aren't they? Oh--and orthodontia, I should remember to mention... ;-)