South Carolina 9

Listen to South Carolina 9, a 93-year-old man from Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 93

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/08/1921

PLACE OF BIRTH: Charleston, South Carolina

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: retired shipyard worker and retired U.S. Army

EDUCATION: high school

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject served in the U.S. Army for two years in Germany.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Other than time in the military, there have been no outside influences on his dialect.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Mary C. Coy

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 13/09/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, ‘bout the only place I know except for a couple of years of my life when I was in the Army. But, anyway, I grew up in Charleston during the Depression years. There were a lot of times when things were really tough and we had to take a lot of hand-me-downs, which was OK with me. But, anyway, finally when I got to be 18 years of age, or before that, I went to — I was, uh, attended James Simons School and, uh, Murray Vocational High School. I crossed the railroad tracks, went through, uh, Factory Hill by the old, uh, bagging mill to get to James Simons School. Uh, Murray — I rode a bicycle to Murray and had a great time at all my schools. But when I reached age 18, I went to work in the shipyard. I was hired as a classified laborer. Now whatever “classified” meant, I never did find out, but it didn’t make a ounce of difference with me. Uh, I was making money. I was making 42.3 cents an hour, 17 dollars and 28 cents a week, the most money I’ve ever had in all my life. It gave me enough money I could pay my grandmother some board and buy me some clothes of my very own. Uh, after working outside, we, well, while working outside, we were building steel racks for large sheets of steel that was coming in so that they could build ships. After a while I was called to work in the office to keep track of money spent and where employees were working, and that sort of business. So, after four years, I received a letter from my draft board. The letter read, “Greetings from the President of the United States,” and it indicated that my friends and neighbors had elected me for possible service in the armed forces. I had to report to the draft board on the 3rd of October 1943, sent to Ft. Jackson where we were examined, and I elected to go into the Army rather than the Marine Corps and the Navy.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Mary C. Coy

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/12/2014

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

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• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.