![\"gleaming_word-mablane1\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/gleaming_word-mablane1.jpg\")
Lil’l Southern Belles by Hamilton Hamilton, 1894, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n
Well, in case you’d like to try your tongue at a tantalizing twang<\/i><\/p>\n
(you know, in the car while you’re driving alone, in the shower where no one can hear \u2026 ),<\/p>\n
start with this word:<\/p>\n
mabalane.<\/p>\n
No, not just mabalane all squished together \u2026<\/p>\n
Like this:<\/i><\/p>\n
maa \u2026 buh \u2026 layyyn<\/i> \u2026<\/p>\n
That’s it!<\/p>\n
The funny thing about this word is that it’s really an obscure term that comes to us from South Africa, meaning “a clerk, a secretary; a person whose work includes the keeping of written records.”<\/p>\n
It’s not really the definition that matters, though, it’s the way it sounds rolling from your lips.<\/p>\n
Master the word mabalane, and soon you’ll be hollering “y’all!”<\/p>\n
with the best of those silver-tongued southern belles.<\/p>\n
![\"gleaming_word-mablane2\"](\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/gleaming_word-mablane2.jpg\")
Vivian Leigh in Gone with the Wind courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oh, honey \u2026 who among us northern gals hasn’t secretly bid her tongue to slip effortlessly into that sweet southern nectar known as a d-r-a-w-l. Or, should I say, d \u2026 r \u2026 a \u2026 w \u2026 l \u2026 That’s … Continue reading