Your compiler has been chained, “like a quarry slave at night, scourged to his dungeon,” to his desk the past several weeks, too busy with intensely complicated and time-sensitive work to enjoy the beauties of the season we marched into from winter a couple of weeks ago. Yes, March 20th was the vernal equinox, better known as the first day of spring.
Only in most places in Georgia, it is pronounced “sprang,” which is also how it sounded in elementary schools when Southern students of your compiler’s generation were asked to conjugate the infinitive, “to spring.” What came out of most mouths was, “Sprang, sprang, have sprung.” It is just how we said it then, and no doubt how many of us say it even today.
So do not get confused when you hear someone say, “sprang.” He or she could be referring to the season we find ourselves in today, or both present and past tense of the verb, “to spring.”
Likewise, there is the word, “brang,” as in, “Brang that pipe wrench over here, please.” That is just how we ask someone to fetch something, unless we are talking fancy, in which case we might be careful to enunciate it correctly, as “bring.” Some people might say that is talking flatly, but to your compiler, it sounds perfectly natural; however, if consistency is important to you in spoken language, your compiler is afraid he will disappoint, for he does not sing “Jangle Bells” at Christmas – he sings “Jingle Bells.” And several times in church each Sunday, he sings when a hymn comes up in the order of worship, but occasionally he sangs in the present tense.
As for the words, “king, ping, and ring,” he is reasonably sure he pronounces all three without flattening the vowel. But the thang is, when he goes out to eat chicken wings (which he pronounces correctly), people who speak consistently want to brang him to a scaffold, strang him up, sprang the trap, and hang him!
It all puts him in mind of Professor Henry Higgins in the 1964 comic musical drama, My Fair Lady, who wails in dismay, “WHY can’t the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction by now should be antique…” and your compiler winces a bit to consider what that learned linguist would think of his own Middle Georgia patois. But if the late Shelby Foote were playing Professor Higgins – well, THAT would be a different story altogether! Your compiler would be in high cotton and come out smelling like a rose, to mix a couple of metaphors thoroughly.
That brings us to the consistency question – is consistency important in spoken English? Your compiler would argue that consistency is of absolute criticality in WHAT one says; one’s word must be one’s bond if one is to be held in any semblance of respect in his or her community. But HOW one says it – spring or sprang, or both, interchangeably? – is, in his opinion, of considerably lesser import. So let us brang it all home and land this plane.
Flowers have sprung forth from the ground, buds are springing from the trees, sneezes are springing from noses due to the annual pollen coating – all undoubtable signs that “sprangtime” is upon us. Enjoy the beauty of the season, and don’t sweat the occasional flattening of a vowel you might hear sprang forth from an otherwise well-spoken Southerner.
