A simple look at a Midwestern phone book, gives many German names it is true, but like the South, the overwhelming majority are English.

There is a current fad to split whites into a multitude of warring ethnicities. This has led to numerous unfounded superstitions, such as that the Midwest is German and the South is Kelticke (and you may not say "Celtic" as it is spelled).

The current superstition about the Midwest being exclusively German seems to come from the belief that millions upon millions of 48'ers came over for Lincoln's war and that all 48'ers were socialist in the Marxist sense. This belief seems to be a holdover from World War propaganda that said that all Germans were evil mass-murdering Huns.

The belief of the massive invasion of 48'ers seems to come from Southerners (such as Busbice) who are anxious to prove to the world that Southerners are not wicked naziswhowanttokillsixmillionjews.

Most folk are unaware of their own ancestry beyond grandma, which is why so many with last names like Hill, Kibler, Smith, Franklin are readily convinced that they are Kelticke. Or that Midwesterners with the same last names are Huns.

In reality, the ethnicity of North America outside the Northeast was firmly established before 1776. And Englishmen and Germans are both Germanic; and Englishmen, Germans, and Keltickes are all of the nordic subtype.

No, I don't want a blindfold, just a cigarette.

Shoot straight - don't make a mess of me.

Personally, I prefer thick local accents to dull conformity. I remember two girls I used to know when I was younger, who originally were from - of all places, yes, it's true - Rockford Illinois. They had lived in Arkansas most of their lives. They were both attractive, but the younger one was particularly beautiful. She also had the thickest accent, virtually unchanged since she had left Rockford as a child. Listening to her speak was almost erotic.
Likewise, setting aside that irritating valley girl speech which was never anything but an artificial construct even in the valley, a real Southern California accent, one of the softest of Yankee accents, which also has similarities to Southern accents, is quite pleasing in a girl. The modern pan-American, valleygirlesque accent of conformity is not, because it's too dull and lacks real character.

As go the local dialects of the English language, so goes the entire English language. The decline of regionalism is the decline of language itself, just as it is also the decline of culture and civilisation. How could it not be?

"If one were to conduct a blind test of college student writing, I doubt Mr. Wilson could separate 10 Sons of the Confederacy from 10 third-generation formerly hyphenated Americans."

This is almost surely true, even if TJF is right that Grumpy Old Man's specific example of Conrad is wrong. (I have not read enough Conrad to make a judgment either way.)

Living half my life in the Midwest and half in the South, I have observed the difference between simple country people in the South who, despite grammatical lapses, use English as a native language, and third or fourth generation Scandinavians who simply have not mastered the language because they nevery grew up in a family where it was spoken competently. This has nothing to do with any innate superiority or inferiority of the two groups but is the effect of a Melting Pot that dissolved the culture the immigrants brought with them but never fully caused them to assimilate. Hence the continued rancor, even among the Irish, against the old WASP establisment and its folkways. Mass immigration simply does not work. One of the Midwest's finest writers, Ole Rolvaag, knew this and urged his fellow Norwegians not to abandon their culture and language.

Speaking of Rolvaag, my good friend and comrade-in-arms Dr. Wilson has somewhat overstated his case against Midwestern culture.

Edward Eggleston is pretty small beer when Midwestern literature is concerned and by his own account something of a namby-pamby. Booth Tarkington is the best writer from Indiana, and though he had Southern roots on one side, his mother's family were Yankees. His father supported the Union, and Tarkington all his life was drawn to the Northeast. Of the best Midwestern writers, e..g., Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ole Rolvaag, Glenway Westcott, none has shown much in the way of Southern roots.

Ours was a mixed country, too mixed to draw any definite lines. What can we say of the South's best ante-bellum poet, Timrod, the grandson of--gasp--a German immigrant. Naturally, immigrants living in ethnic enclaves rarely mastered English effectively and they often passed their incapacity down to their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, yea down to our own generation. Many Midwesterners, as a result, continue to speak a clumsy English that is really like a second language, although they have no first language. Of course, there are--though a smaller number--Midwesterners who speak a clear and effective English, certainly better than most contemporary Southerners.

There is nothing inherently defective about Germans or Italians or people who have the misfortune to be born north of the Ohio River. In fact, the cultural frontier ran through the middle of the Middle West. When the great Southern state of Kentucky went Republican in 1862, Illinois and Indiana, dominated by down state and mid-state voters, repudiated the War Party. After the War, the Midwest gave every indication of being the next cultural center of the US. It failed, but that, I believe, was the result of the political and cultural consolidation that took place nationally between 1865 and 1940. Southern culture goes back to Jamestown--settled 400 years ago, while the Midwest barely got going until the 19th century. Making fun of this poor cultureless people is blaming the victim.

I am second to none in my preference for the South above all regions, but I cannot help pointing out that the South has given us, in addition to Faulkner and Percy, such politicians as Clinton, Gore, Edwards, Jimmie Carter and, though he is not himself Southern, Newt Gingrich. It is the South that has made a religious cult out of football, and the South that spawned vermin like Pat Robertson. And yes, it is the South that has given us the treacly filth they miscall country music today. Nashville has become Tinpan Alley with steel guitars (and few enough of them). If we are to blame Midwesterners for what they have allowed themselves to turn into, Southerners also have a good deal of explaining to do. And, after 140 years, we cannot blame our failings on the War lest we fall into the same pattern as blacks who blame everything on slavery.

To me it makes more sense to encourage the foolish local pride that inspires people to accomplish more than they think themselves capable of. B.L. Gildersleeve, a great scholar and Confederate veteran, disliked Yankees and despised Vermont, but Vermont's local patriotism charmed him. Midwesterners, for 140 years, have invited Southern hatred. You cannot mention the South up here without being called a bigot, and while other ethnic jokes are forbidden, the onair "personalities" love to ridicule the Rockford suburbs known as Parkinsaw with one incest joke after another. I'd also like to remind my Midwestern friends that their noble ancestors raped and looted their way across the South--Northeastern regiments were much better behaved.

Still, there is much to praise in the Middle West. Some of the good qualities are, indeed, shared with the South but not all. Let each region restore itself and keep to itself. I only wish Clyde Wilson would not let the cat out of the bag. If he keeps this style up, the Midwest will be sending an even bigger invasion of locusts, I mean snowbirds.

I'd attribute the degeneration of expression to other things, among them the following:

* People read less great literature than they used to. Even most practicing Christians are ignorant of the Bible and are likely to read graceless modern translations. Instead of the classics, insipid politically correct literature proliferates in our schools.

* Children no longer are expected to memorize poetry and great oratory. Instead they watch Japanese cartoons.

* Mass media deliberately vulgarize the language to appeal to the greatest number, "like a cigarette should."

* The professoriat rewards obscurity rather than clarity and grace in writing, and set their turgid example for the slackers we parents entrust to them.

If one were to conduct a blind test of college student writing, I doubt Mr. Wilson could separate 10 Sons of the Confederacy from 10 third-generation formerly hyphenated Americans.

Just ask that Polish interloper, Joseph Conrad.