I have always loved to listen to the way folks speak and their remarkable use of certain words. While I am no professional, I have made a few observations. Aways back (Just threw that in the mix. I don't know where I picked it up!)up the thread, Joe spoke of I used to be able to tell what part of Virginia someone was from by how they pronounced "house" or "home".The sounds Joe refers to are quite similar to those produced by many folks in the Winchester area (except I believe the accent is on a different syllable!). Many people in the southern Tidewater area say something along the lines of "haewse". The latter group may also be found saying "hoem" - it is only one syllable there but the further west(on into West Virginia)you travel the more often it is heard as two.

The oddest thing I think I ever heard in English in the U.S. was "chigoana". Note that the "oa" is a dipthong rather than two syllables. "Chigoana" was used by a very old man and his even older brother whom I met near Shepardstown, West Virginia. The word was ususally followed by "fine". I conversed at length with the pair and finally came to understand that "chigoana fine" was an intoduction to an observation such as "Chigoana fine thet ef you take th' lef fork uv th' river, chigoana hev a better ride." In other words "you're going to find", "you're going to have".

Second only to this word was one I heard from a man from someplace in North Carolina who spoke of "toy-yers". Now, I have heard of "tars" and "tores" (depending on the size of the chaw tucked into the cheek I think) but it took me a while to understand that the NC man was speaking about those rubber things on the wheels of cars.

I once knew a carpenter once to whom "abode" was what you drove a nail into.