Good Morning Lowcountry

Charleston-ese

Now, now. Here's a kerchief. Do pat on that glistening along your cheek. Have a seat here in the piazza shade, up on this rejuvenating little bouncy joggling board. A cool, mint drink, perhaps? Rather humid this morning, isn't it? You seem a might peaked.

We know, Spoleto brushed with Piccolo Spoleto can be mind bending. One can only do so much MonkeyLaCenerentolaAmistadShantalaShivalingappaPatsyCline before the whole thing begins to blur into a humid, enervating smog where even the waiter on stage at that pleasant bistro appears to turn into a banana.

Street smarts

We couldn't help but notice you down there on the corner. Those fashionable sunglasses propped up crookedly on your forehead as you studied the scribbled directions on that program you uncrumpled from your pocket. Then, staring up at the street sign, your mouth trying to form the word over and over. The look in your eye was — we don't mean to be rude — terrifying.

There, there. No need to be estranged-er. Cobblestones and alleyways, crooked old buildings, streets that become inexplicably one way. Parking meters that don't work and ubiquitous ticket writers who do. Horses, mules, clopping right in the middle of the street! Oh, my!

We see those trembles. Any new place can be intimidating. Then there's the language. Legare, Legree. Huger, Ugee. Muckenfuss, Muckenfuus. Horry, Orry. Pilaf, purlo. Combahee, Cumbee. Cooper, Cupper. Rantowles, Rantowels. Barefoot, barefooted. Hominy, homny. Sesame, benne. Let's not even start on Beaufort or Bo-fort.

We understand. For the rest of your visit, allow us a modest courtesy tourist tip: Nothing in Charleston is as simple as it seems to sound.

Frenchifried

What you are attempting to ladle up here is a Lowcountry boil of vernacular Native American, English, French, Spanish, West African and Rosetta-Stone-knows-what-else — all of it simmered for a few centuries in a Madeira brine. It's not just you; most everyone staggers around a bit perplexed at first.

"Oh yes, yes, yes, yes," said Marie-Laure Arnaud, Alliance Française de Charleston president, who arrived 30 years ago from Lyons, France. "It still amazes me. If an American word looked exactly like a French word, I'd still have difficulty pronouncing it. You think it's going to be so similar, and when you hear people, it's so far off it's foreign."

In fact, proper Charlestonian pronunciation is so far off from its French roots that, to explain it to someone newly arrived from France, Arnaud has to write words down.

Funetics

But be brave. It could be worse. In Charleston, proper pronunciation makes at least a nod toward propriety. In New Orleans, the French street names are mangled unrecognizably — and that's the accepted pronunciation! Let's not even bring Savannah into the conversation.

A decorous geniality is the hallmark of the Holy City. So, traipse your way languidly off into the mystic of the Lowcountry. You have nearly a whole week to go. And Charleston is a peninsula, so sooner or later you are likely to hit water and have to turn around. Only a seriously misguided soul would wander so far off as to stumble across the sign reading "Bowman. UFO Welcome Center."

Don't mind the kindly, bemused look on the face of the person you're asking directions from. Consider it just one more stumble across the cobblestone history of the place.

"Etiquette says it's totally fine, it's polite for you to say, 'Is that correct? Did I pronounce that right?' " says Cindy Grosso, the maven at Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette. "It shows interest, it shows respect, rather than not asking and stumbling over the name again."

There, now. Ready again? We see that ticket for The-Be(a)st-of-Taylor-Mac-Burial-at-Thebes-Chamber-Music-Middleton-Place-Finale. Back into the mouse maze. It's not so head-turning as it seems at first. You'll be just fine. You'll pick it up. Just don't believe your eyes. Believe your ears.

GMLc
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