LPPM MMV "A Charming Southern Accent"

[Dave Monroe]

"The door was suddenly and violently kicked open and
through it lurched a fat florid adolescent in a sailor
suit, carrying a girl piggy-back. 'Lewpayskew,' the
sailor shouted. 'Whay aw yew, yew mothuh-lovin
Roumanian.'
   "'Hold on,' Siegel said. 'What was that again,' he
asked the sailor, who had deposited his passenger on
the floor. 'Mayun ah said whay's Lewpayskew,' the
sailor said. 'God,' he babbled into the phone,
'they're coming, they're filtering in already. What do
I do, Rachel, they can't even talk English. There is
some nautical looking type here who is speaking no
language known to man.'
   "'Darling,' Rachel laughed, 'stop acting like a war
flick. That's probably only Harvey Duckworth, who
comes from Alabama and has a charming southern accent.
You'll get along wonderfully, I know you will. Call me
tomorrow and let me know everything that has
happened.'" (MMV, pp. 3-4)


Harvey Duckworth

“Harvey Duckworth” – What’s a duck worth?
Harvard/Duckworth (both publish books, though I don’t
know how long Duckworth have been around)?

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0303&msg=77296

Harvey

http://www.harvey.com/

http://www.toonopedia.com/harvey.htm

Duckworth

http://www.duckw.com/

HARVEY   m
Usage: English
Pronounced: HAHR-vee
>From a surname which was derived from the Breton first
name Haerviu, which meant "battle worthy" from Breton
haer "battle" and viu "worthy". The first name was
introduced to England by Breton settlers after the
Norman Conquest. 

https://www.behindthename.com/nmc/eng6.html

Battle worthy AND duck worthy?  Okay ...


"a charming southern accent"

On "The Small Rain" ...

"Most of what I dislike about my writing is present
here in embroyo, as well as in more advanced forms. I
failed to recognize, just for openers, that the main
character's problem was real and interesting enough to
generate a story on its own.  Apparently I felt I had
to put on a whole extra overlay of rain images and
references to 'The Waste Land' and A Farewell to Arms.
 I was operating on the motto 'Make it literary,' a
piece of bad advice I made up all by myself and then
took.  Equally embarrassing is the case of Bad Ear to
be found marring much of the dialogue, especially
toward the end.  My sense of regional accents in those
days primitive at best.  I had noticed how in the
military voices got homogenized into one basic
American country voice." (SL, "Intro," p. 4)


"Mizzable Guineas"

Pronounced "gi-nee." Came from "Guinea Negro" and
originally referred to any Black or any person of
mixed ancestry. This dates back to the 1740's. By the
1890s it was being applied to Italians--almost
certainly because they tend to have darker skin than
Anglo-Saxons/Germans. By 1911 the term began being
applied to Hispanics, although the reference to
Italians is the most common. 

http://gyral.blackshell.com/names.html

The use of guinea as an extremely offensive ethnic
slur directed against Italians or those of Italian
descent is only one of several uses of this word. 

The earliest related form to note is Guinea negro,
first recorded in the mid-eighteenth century. This
referred literally to a black person from Guinea, a
region on the coast of West Africa. Common in the
eighteenth century in this form, by the early
nineteenth century we began to see guinea used on its
own (without negro) to refer to a black person. This
sense is now rare or obsolete. 

The usual sense 'an Italian person or person of
Italian descent' is first recorded in 1890 and appears
to have been reasonably common thereafter. (It even
appears in the well-known 1894 song "Sidewalks of New
York," the one with the chorus "East side, West side,
all around the town": "Boys and girls together, we
would sing and waltz/While the Ginnie played the organ
on the sidewalks of New York." This verse is often
euphemized to "While Tony played the organ....") 

This sense was probably inspired by guinea in the
sense 'a black person' with reference to the
relatively dark skin of southern Italians, who made up
the majority of Italian immigrants at that time. Other
racial slurs that normally refer to black people are
also often applied to members of other dark-skinned
groups. 

Guinea is found reasonably often in two other senses
in the early twentieth century: 'a Hispanic person'
and 'a guy; fellow; person'. It is found less
frequently in the senses 'a Southern European [not
from Italy]' and 'the Italian language', and from
World War II 'an Asian'. 

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19981120

Perahps not quite so charming there, and not 
exclusively Southern, either.  Cf. ... 

"On weekends when business was good and guinea red
wine splashing around like the wave from a heavy
merchantman ...." (V. Ch. 1, p. 10)

Harper Perennial ed., see also pp. 143-4 ...

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