Potato Potahto, Tomato, Tomahto...Who Cares I'm Hungry

Before having to swat away Buzz while at Virginia Beach this past weekend, I got an interesting lesson in pronunciation.

With the dawn of the radio and television age, it seemed as if regional accents shrunk, at least a little. The difference between regional accents may not be quite as strong as it used to be, but differences still exist…

Here is a conversation between me and a friend from Manassas, VA at a restaurant:

Manassas: What's in that box?
Buffalo: Crayons

Manassas: What's in that box?
Buffalo: Crayons

(I go back to trying to open a tiny, triangular box of crayons that would rather to stay shut, thinking that if I open the box and show them to her, it will all be clear and I can get to coloring.)

Manassas: What?!
Buffalo: Crayons! CRAY-ONS!
Manassas: OH, cray-ons!

All that time what I had been saying sounded like "crans," a perfectly acceptable one-syllable word that was unintelligible to a friend from Manassas who only understood the word when it has two syllables.


P.S. For those of you who could care less about how the word was said and are more interested in the fact that I had crayons in the first place, I'll say this: Coloring is a good distraction from hunger for people of all ages. It keeps you from gnawing on your own arm or snapping at your dining companions.