Before we became so enamored of radio, TV, and the Internet, people in the US had real regional accents. I was strongly reminded of that while watching Gordon Ramsey: Uncharted on cooking in south Louisiana. Twenty years ago he wouldn’t have easily understood the English spoken at the end of the toe of Louisiana. Forty years ago it might have been incomprehensible.

In the late 1970’s I listened to Cajun radio stations where patois was spoken while driving to Baton Rouge.

My father’s cracker family were rough people from Duck Commanderville, having migrated from Michigan, Arkansas, then to Louisiana after the Civil War.

My mother’s family spoke a very formal English with colloquialisms you could trace back to pre American Revolution America and England. Like Shelby Foote.

I miss the wild jambalaya of American accents.