COLUMBIA, S.C.
“Y’all” isn’t welcome in Erica Tobolski’s class in voice and diction at the University of South Carolina. And forget about “fixin’,” as in getting ready to do something, or “pin” when talking about the writing instrument.
Tobolski’s class is all about getting rid of accents, mostly Southern ones in the heart of the former Confederacy, and replacing them with Standard American Dialect, the uninflected tone of TV news anchors that oozes authority and refinement.
“We sort of avoid talking about class in this country, but clearly class is indicated by how we speak,” she said.
“Many come to see me because they want to sound less country,” she said. “They say, ‘I don’t want to lose my accent completely, but I want to be able to minimize it or modify it.”’
That was the case for sophomore Ali Huffstetler, who said she “luuuvs” the slow-paced softness of her upstate South Carolina magnolia mouth but wants to be able to turn it on and off depending on her audience.
“I went to New Hampshire to visit one of my best friends and all they kept saying was, ‘Will you please talk, can you just talk for me?”’ Huffstetler said. “I felt like a little puppet show.”
