Vernacular of Grapes of Wrath

Whenever there's dialogue in this book, I kind of just want to throw it at a wall. The characters are all from Oklahoma or "Oklahomy" as they like to call it. Whenever they speak, they always have this really prominent southern accent. Which means they leave the G's off the ends of words like thinking and speaking that end in "ing". I've begun to think the way they talk, and that's not good. It makes the characters and me sound like uneducated hicks, which is something I desperately try to avoid.

What really annoys me though is when they say somepin instead of something. As in "I been thinkin' we've got to do somepin about it."

The only thing I don't mind that they say is Rose of Sharon's name. They say it like Rosasharn. Even though Rose of Sharon is prettier, Rosasharn is easier to say and think as you read it in the book.

I found it funny when the Joads are talking to (I think it was) Wilson and they comment on how he speaks a different way than they do, and that's how they could tell he wasn't from nearby. And the Northerners. They do talk funny, it's true, but you can understand them a lot better than the Southerners.

Not only do they speak weird, they also talk a lot. They go on rambling monologues that they don't realise no one is listening to. Hardly any of them are relevant to the things going on around them. Almost every character has had a chance at a monologue buy now.

I realise that this blog has just been one long string of complaints, but we are supposed to let you know our reactions to various things in the book. It just so happens that my way of dealing with/ my reaction to the characters' speech is criticising and complaining about it. Hopefully when they get to California we'll meet some people who talk differently in a good way and I won't have anything to complain about.