Certain words in the Southern dialect are not easily rendered on the printed page — words that do not necessarily lend themselves to spellings that make sense. At a recent art exhibition in Atlanta, Salvation South editor Chuck Reece was reminded of such a word from his youth, one he found literary validation for only after he left home.

Flannery O' Connor, Yogi Berra, Albert Einstein

Flannery O' Connor, Yogi Berra, Albert Einstein

TRANSCRIPT:

Chuck Reece: When it comes to the saying “There is no such thing as coincidence,” it seems everyone has their own version. The late physicist Albert Einstein is supposed to have said, “Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.” But alas, there is no evidence of Einstein actually saying or writing that line.

The late great New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, the king of contradictory statements, might have looked at Einstein's contradiction and said, “That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence.”

Yogi actually did say that. But not about Einstein.

Either way, I think coincidences are cool. I welcome them.

A couple weeks ago, I went to an art gallery here in Atlanta to see an exhibition of paintings by my Mississippi friend Blair Hobbs. Blair’s brilliant paintings and collages are sometimes based on Southern literature, and the exhibition I went to see was called “Birthday Cake for Flannery,” a series of paintings, each based on a short story by Flannery O’Connor.

In the center of one of her paintings was the image of an artificial leg. If you’ve read O’Connor, you might remember that from her story “Good Country People.” Now that story has a character named Joy Hopewell, who lost her leg at age 10 when a hunter accidentally shot her. Seeing that painting, I came home determined to reread “Good Country People.” It had been many years since my last reading.

And as it turns out, I had forgotten the gift that story had given me the first time I read it. When I was a kid, my oldest aunt, Mary, had a very distinct and old-timey Appalachian accent. When Aunt Mary did anything two times, she had not done it “twice.” She had done it “twīct.”

Away at college, I often felt self-conscious about my own mountain way of speaking and was careful not to mention doing anything “twīct.” Then, in a Southern literature class, I was assigned to read “Good Country People.” And in that story, I found a passage in which the woman who keeps house for Joy Hopewell’s mother is talking about her pregnant 15-year-old daughter.

“She thrown up four times after supper,” she said, “and was up twict in the night after three o’clock.”

At first, I was confused by this word. O’Connor spelled it T-W-I-C-T.

“Twicked?” I thought. What on earth does “twicked” mean?

‘The next day, I read the story again before class and it hit me. Twict! Like doing something two times. Literary validation for my Aunt Mary and for me.

So for the rest of this week, I hope whatever you do “oncet” is so enjoyable that you would do it “twict.”

Come see us anytime at SalvationSouth.com. 

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Fridays at 7:45 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on GPB Radio. Salvation South Deluxe is a series of longer Salvation South episodes which tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it. You can also find them here at GPB.org/Salvation-South and wherever you get your podcasts.