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July 27, 2016

The Life of Tom Landry, the Man in the Hat

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

Tom Landry and Charles Schulz died on the same day: Feb. 12, 2000. Mike Thompson, the Detroit Free Press cartoonist honored them both with a cartoon showing them entering the pearly gates together. Schulz was depicted as Charlie Brown and Landry had his arm around him. Landry said, “Now a few pointers on kicking a football…”

For Coach Landry, at least, I can’t imagine a finer eulogy.

I mourned Landry’s passing, of course, along with millions of other Landry fans. A day that was almost as tough, though, was the day Landry was fired, in 1989. That day, too, hit me like a death in the family. Landry had been our coach since many of us were children. And when he was fired, we were 40. He had been our father on the field. He raised us within the game, teaching us to be gracious in victory and dignified in defeat. And with one stroke of Jerry Jones’ pen, he was gone. Devastating.

Landry was known as the man in the hat. He was the stoic leader on the Dallas Cowboys sidelines, always impeccably dressed and sporting his fedora. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said, “If there were a Mount Rushmore for the NFL, the profile of Tom Landry would have to be there, wearing his trademark hat.”

While coaching, Landry was so focused he rarely smiled. He was often called “unemotional.” But I can think of words that would be more fitting: a man of character, honor, integrity, and faith. He was pure class, on and off the field. He was ethos personified.

In his 29 years as Dallas’ head coach, Landry led the Cowboys to more playoff seasons, by far, than they have had since. And here is another statistic hard to fathom: the Cowboys still have not played as many games without Landry as they played with him.

Under Landry, the Cowboys won 13 Divisional titles and played in five Super Bowls, winning two. They enjoyed 20 consecutive winning seasons, a record no NFL coach has ever come close to matching.

As glorious as those years were, none equalled Landry’s finest season in football. He played for the New York Giants professionally, and was all-pro one year, but that was not his finest season, either. He played football on scholarship for the University of Texas, but after only one semester, his career there was put on hold by World War II. He volunteered to join the Army Air Corps and flew 30 missions over Germany, crash landing once in Belgium. Though the wings were shaved off, he and all his men walked away without serious injury. Not bad for a 20-year-old.

One could consider his WWII service, in a Churchillian sense, his finest season, but as we are talking football, we have to go back further.

To get to his best season ever, we have to go all the way back to his high school years in Mission, Texas, way down in the Rio Grande Valley.

It was Landry’s senior year, 1941. He played both sides of the ball. He played quarterback and defensive back. Landry led the Mission Eagles to a perfect 12-0 season. They went all the way to the regional championship, which was as far as they could go that year (there was no state championship in those days).

The Mission Eagles won every game they played, holding every team scoreless, except for one. In 12 games they gave up only one score. Donna High School managed to squeeze out one touchdown against them.

Many years later, in his autobiography, Landry wrote, “That autumn of glory, shared with my boyhood friends… remains perhaps my most meaningful season in my fifty years of football. The game was never more fun, the victories never sweeter, the achievement never more satisfying.”

Landry’s near flawless season, and his impressive professional life thereafter, was honored in 1975 when the Mission School District named their football stadium the Tom Landry Stadium. And when he died in 2000, I-30 between Dallas and Fort Worth was named the Tom Landry Highway.

To me, one of the trivial truths about Landry that speaks to his greatness, is that his Cowboys never gave him a Gatorade bath, never dumped the ice bucket down his back.

After his coaching days were over, he developed a sterling reputation as an inspirational speaker. He always advised young players to keep their lives ordered in this simple way: faith, family, and football. He was also fond of saying, ¨As of today, you have 100 percent of your life left.¨

He took his own words to heart. After he was fired, while the rest of us were using our energy being mad about the disrespectful way our icon was sacked, Landry was already moving on with his life.

He didn’t waste time being angry or bitter. With characteristic optimism, he saw the silver lining. He said, “As a boy growing up in Mission, Texas, I always dreamed of being a cowboy. For 29 wonderful years, I was one.”

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

July 13, 2016

Words, They are a Changin’

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

Slang is the working class of words. Carl Sandburg said “slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.”

But slang is always changing. For an older guy like me, It’s hard to keep up with.

Did you know that “on fleek,” “squad,” and “lit” are on their way out? Neither did I. Those words are going out before I knew they were in. Hell, I just learned “hipster” a few months ago, which likely proves I’m not one. It also shows I’m late to learn new slang. No surprises there. By the time I catch up with a new movement, it has generally moved on.

Millennials, by contrast, change slang faster than Taylor Swift changes boyfriends.

One trend that I have noticed lately is how many words or expressions common 20 years ago have either disappeared altogether or reversed meanings.

“Parking” is a case in point. Twenty years ago parking was the term for finding a quiet spot on a country road and enjoying some intimate time with your date.

That meaning is gone. If you bring up that term in front of today’s college students, they will say, “I know. The parking problem on campus is terrible.” If you explain what it used to mean they will say, “Oh, you mean Netflix and chill!”

“Shade” is something I’ve always tried to sit in. Now, evidently, it is something you can throw.

“Sick” is the new cool. “Sick” used to mean ill, but now it means that something is hip: “That is a sick tune you’re playin’.” Wicked is also strangely good. “Leah, you’re sick and wicked.” That’s a compliment!

“Savage” used to be a word no one wanted to be associated with. Now it works as praise. “That motorcyle jump was savage, dude.” Or you can use it as a verb, “You savaged that Snickers bar.”

“Dope?” used to be an idiot – as in “He’s a dope.” Now, it is something or someone who is super cool, as in “that’s so dope” or “nobody’s dope as me.” There are even caps that sport the word DOPE right up front. A few decades ago that would have been a punishment.

“Howdy” has largely been replaced, at least among some millennials by “‘Sup,” a contraction of “What’s up?” But I’m sure there’s still a few young “howdiers” out there.

“Awesome” has changed in the sense that it used to be a powerful word, a word that could bench press 500 pounds. It was reserved for Godly things, for divine things. You would use it for a crimson sunset over El Capitan in West Texas. But now this sublime word is used promiscuously – as in “those are awesome tacos” or “You’ll be here in ten minutes? Awesome.” Inflation has set in. “Awesome” has lost its awesomeness. The same is true for “amazing.”

We have some nonverbal reversals, too. Wearing your cap backwards or sideways used to be considered nerdy. Wearing it cocked to the side once made you seem like a clown. Today, wearing it that way can be “dope.” But only in youth culture. If I were to do it, I would look like an old clown. Best for me to stick to Stetsons.

Used to be that wearing your shirt tail out was slovenly. Now, it is stylish. Wearing your shirt tucked in is considered nerdy. Out is in and in is out. Unless you are talking about Western fashion where the tucked tradition mostly prevails.

One word that seems to have weathered the decades without changing is “cool.” “Cool” was cool in the sixties and it is still cool today. And not only is it cross-generational, it is cross-cultural, too. “Cool” is cool in the African-American world. It’s cool in the hispanic world and it’s cool in white culture. It’s cool in rap and it’s cool in country. It’s transcontinental as well. People around the world who don’t speak English seem to know at least two words: “okay” and “cool.” “Cool” is singularly diverse with diverse acceptance. And that’s awesome.

A younger, perpetually cooler friend heard me making these observations and he said to me, “Don’t be throwin’ shade on our slang. You just need to get woke, dude.”

That’s probably true. Workin’ on it.

‘Til next time, YOLO y’all.

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

June 29, 2016

Oscar Wilde’s Tour of Texas Gives Us Life

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” He would be pleased to know that we’re going to talk a good deal about him in the next few minutes.

Few people know that this great playwright, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, the author of “A Picture of Dorian Grey” and “The Importance of Being Earnest”, lectured in Texas in 1882. He was just 27 years old.

He liked reciting his entire name like that to show off his Irish heritage. He said he had been shedding names since he was a boy and hoped one day to be known simply as Wilde.

At 27, he was already enormously famous in Europe as a writer, theater critic, an architectural historian, a Classicist, and the leader of the Aesthetic Movement. He was known for dressing opulently in purples and brocades, often with an eccentric sunflower in his lapel. So there was great curiosity about what would happen when this Irish Dandy, as he was known, lectured in the macho world of Texas cowboys.

When he had passed through customs in New York City, he famously said, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” So, many Texans, being Texcentric as we are, wondered what the genius would think about our state. Well, for the most part, he liked Texas.

As he took the train to Galveston, through East Texas and Houston, he was fascinated by all the alligators lying lazily on the muddy banks of the bayous.

His first lecture was in Galveston, which was the largest city in Texas at the time. Oscar loved it there. He said, “Galveston, set like a jewel in a crystal sea, was beautiful. Its fine beach, it’s shady avenues of oleander, and its delightful sea breezes were something to be enjoyed.”

He said, “The people of Galveston were wonderful to me. They made me an honorary Colonel in the Texas Rangers. So I wrote immediately to all my friends and told them that they should henceforth address me as Colonel Wilde.”

From Galveston, he traveled to San Antonio by train, in what he regarded as the monstrous Texas heat. Incidentally, he said that traveling by train, whizzing by everything at 40 miles an hour, was no proper way to see new country. The proper way to see new country was on a horse.

In San Antonio, Wilde stayed at the Menger Hotel, which of course still exists today. And even in 1882, the Menger was known for luxury. And so was Wilde. He often said, “Let me be surrounded by luxury, I can do without necessities!”

He toured the famous missions in San Antonio. He said, “The San Jose Mission was the finest example of beautiful architecture I came across in all of the Americas.”

He was quite moved by “those old Spanish churches with their picturesque remains of tower and dome, and their handsome carved stonework, standing in the…sunshine of the Texas prairie.”

As for the Alamo, though, he described the “noble” structure’s condition as “monstrous.” He thought it a shame that Texas had allowed this most “sacred of shrines to fall into such Philistine conditions.” The Alamo had been, in those days, used as an Army depot.

He lectured in San Antonio on architecture and interior design. He loved the local use of the natural wood and stone that was so available in the hill country, but warned about the overuse of horrid wallpaper. He believed that a child raised in the ambiance of such wallpaper could later use it as a “defense for a life of crime.”

Wilde was asked in Louisiana how his lecture in San Antonio had gone and he said that the women had loved it, but the men, not so much. Indeed, the men were quite a distraction, he said, “walking in and out with their squeaky boots and clangy spurs. The men were going out for beer, you see. Evidently,” he said, “men in Texas cannot survive more than an hour between beers.”

If he were to return today, 135 years later, he would likely find us about the same.

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

June 1, 2016

‘You May All Go to Hell’ And 9 More Great Texas Quotes

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

1. “You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.” Davy Crockett said this angrily after losing his Tennessee bid for the U.S. Congress.

I think he really said, “Y’all can go to hell,” but grammatical purity likely corrupted the original transcription.

2. Mary Lasswell, who grew up in Brownsville and wrote the famous book “I’ll Take Texas” said:

“I am forced to conclude that God made Texas on his day off, for pure entertainment, just to prove that all that diversity could be crammed into one section of earth by a really top hand.”

3. “If a man’s from Texas, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him by asking.” John Gunther is credited with this. Many people think Gunther was a big gruff Texas oil man. He wasn’t. He was a famous journalist who published the quote in his incredible, best-selling book “Inside U.S.A.”

4. Speaking to the size of Texas, Wallace O. Chariton, said:

“In the covered wagon days, if a baby was born in Texarkana while the family was crossing into the Lone Star State, by the time they reached El Paso, the baby would be in the third grade.”

Please don’t do the math on this and write to tell me that at ten miles a day this would only take three months. We don’t need math purists debating Texas hyperbole.

5. Conrad Hilton bought his very first hotel in Cisco, and so really launched his empire in Texas. He said:

“There’s a vastness here and I believe that the people who are born here breathe that vastness into their soul. They dream big dreams and think big thoughts, because there is nothing to hem them in.”

6. Where does this attitude come from? Larry McMurtry thinks it comes from the influence of the old Texas frontier. McMurtry said:

“What my whole body of work says… is that Texans spent so long getting past the frontier experience because that experience is so overwhelmingly powerful. Imagine yourself as a small hopeful immigrant family, alone on the Staked Plains, with the Comanche and the Kiowa still on the loose. The power of such experience will not sift out of the descendants of that venturer in one generation and produce Middletown. Elements of that primal venturing will surely inform several generations.”

In more accessible language, McMurtry also famously said: “Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.”

7. James Michener, who wrote the 1985 blockbuster, TEXAS, explained the state as follows:

“What you Northerners never appreciate… is that Texas is so big that you can live your life within its limits and never give a damn about what anyone in Boston or San Francisco thinks… A writer can build a perfectly satisfactory reputation in Texas and he doesn’t give a damn about what critics in Kalamazoo think. His universe is big enough to gratify any ambition. Same with businessmen. Same with newspapers. Same with everything.”

8. George W. Bush reflected poignantly about his years in West Texas:

“Those were comfortable, carefree years. The word I’d use now is idyllic. On Friday nights, we cheered on the Bulldogs of Midland High. On Sunday mornings, we went to church. Nobody locked their doors. Years later, when I would speak about the American Dream, it was Midland I had in mind.”

9. Here’s perhaps my favorite quote of all. It is by John Steinbeck, from his memoir “Travels With Charley: In Search of America.”

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

10, And we must hear from Molly Ivins, too: “I think provincialism is an endemic characteristic with mankind. I think everyone everywhere is provincial. But it is particularly striking with Texans, and we tend to be very Tex-centric.”

It is the summative meaning of all these quotes that gives power to our most popular modern slogan: “Don’t Mess with Texas.”

May 18, 2016

The Mysterious Texan and the Ranchers’ Convention

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

The story goes that there was a convention of landowners – mega farmers and big ranchers – up in Denver. There were four men sittin’ around in the bar there in the fancy resort, enjoying happy hour. Three of them were swappin’ stories about their farms and ranches and generally braggin’ about their land holdings. A fourth man, a Texan, was off to the side a bit. You knew he was from Texas because of the Lone Star hatband on his Stetson. He was not much involved in the conversation, just readin’ the paper and half-listenin’ to the others.

One of the talkers said, “I have about 8,122 acres of land along the Western Slopes of the Rockies here in Colorado. Have over 1,000 horses, I bet, if I could ever manage to count ‘em all. Probably the highest ranch in the Western U.S. – we call it El Cielo Ranch because it’s so close to Heaven.”

Next man said, “Sounds real nice. I have kind of the opposite. I own El Diablo Farms in Southern California’s Imperial Valley. Always hotter then the Devil down there. But we have over 9,500 irrigated acres. It is a desert, but just add water and watch the miracles happen. We grow produce faster than you can harvest it. Like a license to print money!” he said, laughing loudly.

Third guy said, “I don’t have nearly that much land. I have about 6,000 acres in the fertile Willamette Valley. Have the largest dairy operation in Oregon. Over 3,000 registered Holstein cows. Scottish Dairies it’s called. Supply milk to half of Portland. Only problem is the Willamette River runs right down the middle of my farms and makes navigating my own property difficult. It’s a beautiful problem to have, though.”

The Texan was still sittin’ quietly and then one of ‘em says, “Hey, Tex, how about you? How much land do you have?”

He said, “Well, down in Texas it’s considered unseemly to ask a man how much land he owns or how many head of cattle he runs. We talk about land in terms of sections, not acres, but, since you gentlemen revealed your cards, I guess I can oblige your curiosity. I suppose, all told,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, as though mentally counting, “I have 200 acres.”

The three men burst out laughing. The Californian said, “200 acres! What the hell you doin’ here at this gathering of big ranchers and farmers? What do you call your little ranchito, Tex?”

And the guys laughed some more.

“Well,” drawled the Texan, “I don’t have a name for it myself, but people all round Texas like to call it – Downtown Dallas.”

Things got mighty quiet. You could hear minds bein’ blown. You could hear jaws droppin’ – hittin’ the metaphorical floor.

The Texan drank the last bit of his Shiner Bock, got up and said, “Any you boys want to sell your land, let me know. I’ll dip into my petty cash account and buy you out.”

With that he tipped his Stetson politely and said, “Y’all have a nice evenin’, now.”

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

May 4, 2016

Three Secrets of Life From My 101-Year-Old Mother

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

My mom lived to be 101 and five months. She said once you reached 99, you started counting your age like a newborn – in months: 99 and six months, 99 and nine months. She used to advise that if you wanted to live to be a hundred, you should live to be 99 and then be very, very careful.

Mary B. Strong, whose name doubled as her motto, was a tough, no-nonsense woman. A Daughter of the American Revolution, survivor of the Great Depression; an honest as the day is long woman of the Texas soil. She had what John Wayne called True Grit. I think anyone who lives so long, one in about 40,000, must have True Grit.

So what was the secret to her longevity?

She was always willing to try new things – never one to say, “I’m too old for that.” She bought her first computer when she was 88, was on the Internet writing emails at 92 and had 115 Facebook friends when she died. She refused to let technology leave her behind. Even when her hands were gnarled by arthritis and she could no longer type, she would dictate her emails to those who would type for her. Just a few days before she passed, she was admiring my iPhone, saying, “Oh, I’m gonna buy one of those for myself.”

She didn’t care about the phone, really. She saw the potential for a thousand pictures of grandkids conveniently carried in her purse.

A second secret was that she never stopped moving. She mowed her own lawn ’til she was 85 and never stopped gardening. When she was 99, I asked her what she would do if she could be 18 for a day, and she said, “Oh, I would RUN. I would get out on that Galveston beach and just run until I ran out of island.”

She continued to do her own dishes and laundry right up to her last days. She went to church three times a week, never allowing most illness to keep her away. She’d say, “ I won’t feel any worse at church, and I might feel better.”

She was courageous. For her 101st birthday, she was asking me to take her for a ride on my motorcycle. I told her I‘d have to strap her down with bungee cords and she said that would be fine. Always ready for the next adventure.

Third was her diet. She ate pretty much what she pleased. Eggs and bacon, BBQ, cheeseburgers, Mexican food, a Coca-Cola every mid-morning – and a bowl of ice cream before bed. Her only compromise was in portions – always small. And no alcohol at all.

She had great pride. Her measure of people was in whether or not they took pride in what they did and how they lived. Sometimes her standards were unfair, like the time she visited Arizona and complained about the shabby lawns out there. I reminded her that it was a desert and she said, “But if they had pride, they’d have nice yards.”

That was her central value, I suppose: Pride. She always said to me, “I don’t care much what you do in life, just make sure you live a life you can be proud of.” And if she didn’t personally like something, like the new truck I’d bought, she’d say, “Well, it’s not my kinda truck, but I’m proud of it for ya.”

And that pride she looked for her in others was evident in her. For her 101st birthday, I took her to the hair salon, a place she called the beauty parlor. On the way home I told her how lovely she looked. She leaned over my way as if she was sharing a secret. She said, “You know, a lot of people think I look only about 90.”

Give your Mom a big bear hug for Mother’s Day. And say the four words she cherishes most: “I love you, Mom.”

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

April 20, 2016

The Airline That Started With A Cocktail Napkin

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

This story starts off like many good stories do: two men walked into a bar. Now, we have to expand it a little, two men walked into a bar in San Antonio fifty years ago. Okay, it was actually a restaurant & bar. They ordered drinks, and perhaps hors d’oeuvres. One grabbed a cocktail napkin, took out his pen, and said to the other, “Here’s the plan.”

He then drew a simple triangle on the napkin. At the apex of the triangle he wrote Dallas. The bottom left he labeled San Antonio. On the bottom right he wrote Houston. He said, “There – that’s the business plan. Fly between these cities several times a day, every day.” And that is the story of how Southwest Airlines began, on a simple napkin in a bar in San Antonio.

The two men were Rollin King and Herb Kelleher. Rollin was a pilot and a businessman and Herb was a lawyer. Rollin would become a managing director of the company and Herb would become its chairman. There is a plaque at the Southwest Airlines headquarters that enshrines a version of the original napkin with this exchange:

“Herb, let’s start an airline.”

“Rollin, you’re crazy. Let’s do it!”

There are many things that Southwest became famous for. First, its LUV nickname, which is still the company’s stock market trading symbol. It introduced hostesses, as they called their flight attendants then, in hot pants and white go-go boots. They were competing in the sexy skies where Braniff stewardesses wore Pucci chic – uniforms by Italian designer Emilio Pucci – and Continental advertised, in a not-so-subtle double entendre, that they “moved their tails for you.” Southwest hostesses cooed in their ads, “There’s someone else up there who loves you.”

But beyond the sizzle, there was genuine business genius in Southwest efficiencies: peanut fares and the ten-minute turnaround, which had never been achieved before. To date, Southwest has flown over 23 million flights without one fatality. Now that’s a safety record.

Perhaps the coolest story in Southwest Airlines’ history, and relatively unknown, was the fare war they fought with now defunct Braniff Airlines in 1972. Braniff went head-to-head with Southwest on the Houston-Dallas route, offering $13 dollar fares as a means of “breaking” Southwest, which didn’t have deep pockets. Southwest responded with a $13 dollar fare or a $26 dollar fare that included a free bottle of Chivas, Crown Royal or Smirnoff.

According to airline lore, for the two months before Braniff surrendered, Southwest was Texas’ biggest distributor of premium liquor.

Not long before he died, Rollin King confessed that the napkin story wasn’t entirely true, but he said that it was a “hell of a good story.” It was sad to hear that, but too late: the myth had become more powerful than the reality. An old saying in journalism is that when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. This is what I prefer to do. After all, it is hard to imagine that a concept so perfectly observant of Occam’s Razor – the simplest solution is usually the best – would not have, at some point, been sketched out on a napkin, a legal pad, or the collected dust on the hood of Cadillac.

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

April 6, 2016

Listen: 12 More Words Texans Mispronounce

Stories from Texas

By: W.F. Strong

There are three kinds of Texans: those with an accent, those without an accent, and those who don’t think they have an accent, but do.

About a year ago, I made a list of the 12 most commonly mispronounced words in Texas. Well, they weren’t absolutely unique to Texas – some were Southernisms, but they were certainly common in Texas. I have now added to that list. I’m calling this commentary, “Mispronouncing in Texas 2.0.” As I did last time, let me assure you, this is all in fun. I’m not claiming that all us Texans talk this way. Some of us do and some of us don’t. It’s just fun to look at our own idiosyncrasies sometimes. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we miss half the humor in the world. So here we go.

Purty for pretty: even used oxymoronically, as in “She’s purty ugly.” Sorry to tell you but that old truck of yours is lookin’ purty ugly.

Thang for thing: everything is ever-e-thang. Hand me that thang over there. Even my brother Redneck Dave puts it in a lullaby. “Hush little baby don’t say a thang, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond rang.” Like they say, must be a Texas thang.

Tiajuana: “Went down to Tiajuana for my nieces wedding, came back with the Tiajuana Two Step.” It’s actually just Tijuana. Tijuana. No extra “a”. When you say Tia-juana you are saying Aunt Juana.

Terlingua has similar issue: it’s not Teralingua, Texas. Just Terlingua. Means three languages.

Valentimes for Valentines: I’ve heard this more than frequently around Valentines Day, especially from younger people. Gonna get my girlfriend some flowers for Valentimes. I guess they connect it to that time of year when love is in the air.

Volumptuous for voluptuous: “She’s hot. She’s Volumptuous.” Probably not. Now if she’s voluptuous, probably so.

Irregardless for regardless: irregardless is not a mispronunciation. It is just not a word. And what is more, irregardless is not a word regardless of how forcefully you say it.

Silicone Valley for Silicon Valley: really different places. Silicon Valley is where they design computers and cell phones and such. Silicone Valley would be where movies of the adult variety are from.

Expresso: it is Espresso. No X. You might take the expressway to get an espresso, but no “X” is needed for the beverage.

Calvary for Cavalry: when people need help they send for the Cavalry, not the Calvary. Calvary is the name of the hill where Jesus was crucified and likely the source of the confusion.

Salmon for Salmon: the “l” in salmon is silent. So don’t ask for smoked saLmon. Smoked salmon will do. However, if you order in Spanish, or Italian, you can use the “l” and all is well.

That’s my latest list of mispronunciations, but don’t think I’m being unduly critical. As soon as I’m off the radio I’m likely to slip back into some of these comfortable long vowels and lazy consonants myself, except for irregardless because my mama worked that one out of me when I was about ten.

W.F. Strong is a Fulbright Scholar and professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. At Public Radio 88 FM in Harlingen, Texas, he’s the resident expert on Texas literature, Texas legends, Blue Bell ice cream, Whataburger (with cheese) and mesquite smoked brisket.

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