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On our last little jaunt off the ridge, we nearly wore grooves across the breadth of these United States. Didn’t quite make it to California, but we sniffed the Nevada/Cali border, and that alone made it feel like we’d covered the whole country. After all, when you’ve ping-ponged through all four time zones, your body clock gives up, throws its hands in the air, and starts free-wheeling somewhere over Oklahoma.
One of the biggest adventures wasn’t the miles—it was the language. Westerners swear they don’t have an accent. (We used to be them!) Bless their hearts. Sure, the twang is missing, but it wasn’t the lack of sweet Southern lilt that rattled us. It was the vocabulary.
Out west, I kept hearing “you guys” tossed around like free peanuts at a roadhouse. Sometimes it meant men, sometimes everyone in earshot. Then came the curveball: “you gals.” I hadn’t heard that since black-and-white TV Westerns where somebody in fringed leather tipped a hat and offered a sarsaparilla. In the South, we’ll toss out a “ladies” every now and then, but “gals”? That sounded like Mae West was about to saunter out of a saloon and suggest things I’d be too embarrassed to write in this blog.
And another thing hit me. We’ve clearly gone native around here. Out West, words like have and can rolled out all neat and tidy, like they’d been to finishing school. Back home, we stretch them out just enough to sound musical—hay-uv and kay-un. And don’t even get me started on our own names: around here it’s Kay-et and Will-eh. Out west, they clipped us back down to Kat and Willie like they were pruning roses.
Traveling that far taught me two things: 1) “y’all” really does belong in the National Vocabulary Hall of Fame, and 2) no matter where you go, there’s always someone convinced their way is the “normal” way. By the time we rolled back onto the ridge, I was ready to hear “y’all” again—preferably yelled across a holler by someone offering pie.
Because, let’s be honest: whether you say “y’all,” “you guys,” or “you gals,” if pie is involved, everybody shows up—and nobody argues about syllables.