WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 15, 2021

Spinning Beulah’s Bun

By Steve Eskew

In The Bald Soprano, the avant-garde French playwright, Eugène Ionesco, took a satirical look at the “disgusting defects of the English language.” 

Oh, bloody bad idea.

The play’s mocking tone infuriated many a Brit. When asked why he chose the English tongue to poke fun at, Ionesco snorted, “Retaliation. I grew weary of hearing the British smirk ‘pardon my French’ as they cursed. Humph. To native French speakers, English words sound like dogs barking.”

No one hated Ionesco’s play more than my cousin Beulah. She suffered through Ionesco’s attack on our language only because she and I were best friends and I was currently an actor in that play.

Beulah, an English teacher, worships the English language and detests the slightest deviation from standard pronunciations.

Since I’m a born deviator and a proud dunce, she’s constantly correcting my diction. Every blessed syllable.

When I was cast as a cockney named Doolittle in a community theater production of My Fair Lady, I asked Beulah to be my dialect coach. She looked over the script. 

“Oh, good Lord, no,” Beulah all but wailed. “I couldn’t put up with that deplorable cockney accent for six minutes, let alone for six weeks of rehearsal. 

“Cockneys pronounce Buckingham Palace as ‘Buknum Pillas’ How barbaric! And don’t even get me started on the evils that the Eliza Doolittles of the world commit against transitive and intransitive verbs.”

Beulah said that the only character she could possibly identify with in My Fair Lady would be Henry Higgins, the phonetics professor. 

Quoting Professor Higgins, Beulah views cockney as “the cold blooded murder of the English tongue.” 

So, I nicknamed my precious, pedantic cousin “Professor Higgins.”

Always well-groomed, Beulah wears her hair in a bun. Many a moment, upon hearing my guilty gibberish, I’ve half expected her perfect bun hairstyle to spin right off her head.

Oh how it drives her Irish into high gear to suffer through what she refers to as my “ineloquent hillbilly pronunciations.”

From fourth grade when I told her I was headed to the “liberry" to return a book, she’s kept me on my toes! (“It’s library, you dullard!”).

To tell the truth, Beulah totally makes my teeth itch. I’m smart, I tell ya. Her very presence causes me to screw up. So I have lazy articulators? Sue me.

Last week, I blurted out, “Alcoholics simply must remember to practice obstinance from alcohol.”

“You must mean to practice ‘abstinence.’ What an ear sore!”

“Dagnabbit, Professor Higgins, you know what I meant.”

“Do I, Mr. Malaprop?

One day, I recommended that she read Truman Capote’s Music for Chameleons. Duh, without thinking, I pronounced chameleons as “shah-MAY-leons.” 

Beulah cringed, then: “It’s music for ka-MEEL-yons, you dufus. “ka-MEEL-yons, Ka-MEEL-yons! 

“Ka-MEEL-yons! I stand corrected,” said I.

“Get off my planet!” said she.

(Good thing she never heard my first pronunciation of the name “Letitia.”)

I grew weary of her correcting my creative pronunciations. I fought back: “Okay, here’s an example of a weird — standard — pronunciation: Look at the word ‘lawyer.’ Pray tell me, why is ‘l-a-w-y-e-r’ pronounced ‘loy-yer”?” 

Beulah could only sputter that it was “a territorial thing.” 

“You’re a-vading the question,” I teased. “You’re giving me acid reflects.”

“Very funny. Hearing your gobbledygook makes me yearn for the sound of my teeth being drilled,” Beulah grunted.

Recently, I told her I was “fatigued,” making the “t-i-g” rhyme with the word fig.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s pronounced ‘fah-TEEEG’ and you know it.”

“Hey, I’m getting better. Give the devil his due. I used to pronounce it ‘FAT-a-goo,” I said. 

“Please pass some aluminum foil for me to gnaw on.” 

I sighed. “How pathetic. Gnaw on this: Webster has recently released a plethora of new words for me to mispronounce. One of the words is ‘flutternutter.’ Look it up.” 

“Flutternutter,” I sweetly repeated.” That would be a nice new nickname for you. As for my own new-word nickname, call me Zaddy.”

“Sssaddy? “What’s a Sssaddy?”

“Keep up, Professor Flutternutter,” I said. “A Zzzaddy is a foxy older man. A real cool cat. A rocking chair rockstar. Hey, check out my man-bun.” 

I removed my hat to reveal my man-bun. Beulah’s mouth flew open.

“Well, uh, Zzzaddy,” she said acidly, “Congrats! With that rat’s nest on top of your head, you’ve done did it — you’ve finally achieved the very image of nonstandard."

“Why, thank you, thank you! You’ve done did it yourself — you’ve spun my man-bun.”