Junebug

Berck

Fri 4 August 2006 – 7:43 pm

I’ve gone and done it now… watched two good indie movies in a row. Considering that the ratio of bad:good indie movies is about 10:1, I’ve got 20 bad ones in store. And I don’t think I can take it:)

Junebug is hardly one of those movies that I’d tell anyone, “You really should watch this movie,” not because it was bad, but because it’s not the sort of movie I tell people to watch. It’s about a small-town southern family and is an honest portrait. The movie quietly points out how funny these people are without making fun of them while simultaneously showing us their flaws without making us think that life sucks. I don’t always agree with Roger Ebert, but I think he’s right on about this movie. I’d give it an A-, but there was one fake southern accent, so it gets downgraded to a B+. Considering that most movies are full of fake accents, it was refreshing to see a bunch that weren’t. The one fake accent was good enough that Joanna insisted it was real. She finally agreed it was fake after discovering the actress was from Colorado. I’m not sure why I’m better at spotting fake southern accents than Jonah is, perhaps because I’ve spent a much larger portion of my life in the South. And she’s the one who thinks it’s acceptable to say, “I’m fixin’ to leave.”

3 responses to “Junebug”

poprobert

Sat 5 August 2006

Nana here,really…
It’s not acceptable to say, “I’m fixin’ to leave.” ?

“I’m almost ready” (not!)
“I’m leaving!” (I wish)
“Are YOU ready?”
“Wait, I forgot…. “(fill in the blank)

“Fixin’ to” covers it all!
nana

Sat 5 August 2006

OK, I was just lazy to switch logins…

“Junebug” sounds like a movie I’d actually
like to see! Fitting that I’m reading the review
while in Dixons Mills, one of the smallest named
towns in Alabama! (We’re here for a wedding.)
Maybe Nathan will let us use his netflix for a couple of
weeks. :)
Berck

Sat 5 August 2006

“I’m on the verge of departing,” would be far better. Or, more likely, “I’m preparing to leave.” Or, far less formally, “I’m about to leave.”

Unfortunately, no one’s bought me a copy of the OED, so I’m not really sure where “fixin’ to” came from. It is at best a purely dialectic usage. So is it acceptable to use it? Sure, but it depends on the setting. Personally, I find it difficult to speak in dialect some of the time and in Standard American English (SAE) at other times, so I make a reasonable effort to use SAE whenever practicable. I’m sure much of my attachment to SAE results from my upbringing– my parents corrected any non-standard grammar they encountered. (These days I’m a bit more of a stickler than they are. My father consistently ignores the subjunctive and says things like, “if that was” when the correct usage would be “if that were.” My time at UD simply reinforced my grammar-nazi tendencies as I had several professors who insisted that their pupils spokes SAE in their presence.)

In a professional setting, it is simply unprofessional to use anything other than SAE. If I were to tell a student, “We’re fixing to fly,” I would consider that highly unprofessional. Joanna, because she is accustomed to her particular dialect is often unable to recognize its inappropriateness is certain settings. If I were to suddenly speak in African American Vernacular English in the same settings, she would be quite dismayed. (As a side note, in AAVE, “fixing to” is rendered “finna”. In fact, Wikipedia has an interesting bit a fixing to in the AAVE page: Finna is a contraction of “fixing to”; though is also believed to show residual influence of late 16th century archaism “would fain (to)”, that persisted until later in some rural dialects spoken in the Carolinas (near the Gullah region). Note: “fittin’ to” is commonly thought to be another form of the original “fixin’ (fixing) to”.)

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Junebug

3 responses to “Junebug”

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