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H.L. MENCKEN, authority on word use and dialect, stated that there is no Ozark dialect. Vance Randolph, who has spent 50 years studying Ozark word usage and dialect, appropriately dedicated his classic Down in the Holler - A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech" to Mencken. Randolph's 1953 publication is out of print, but available in at least three Phelps County libraries.
Because much of Randolph's work was done between 1920 and 1950, some of the terms and pronunciations he cited are rarely heard or have survived only in remote areas. A significant percentage of Randolph's citations can still be heard within the boundaries of Phelps County.
Randolph and students of southern Appalachian speech cite the over-development of redundancies (usage of superfluous or repetitious words) which have survived, including "widow woman," "killed dead," "bare naked," "tooth dentist," and "toady frog." In older times, "preacher man" would have been listed, but modern trends in ordination have justified the sex identification. "Sweet milk" may sound redundant, but isn't. The pioneers drank very little fresh milk; thus the distinction between buttermilk, sour milk, and sweet milk.
Redundancies persist in modern words: e.g., “old antiques,” “free gifts,” “ink pen,” and “hot water heater.” Such usage is not confined to the Ozarks as in the cases of “new innovation,” ”true facts,” “I personally,” and “close proximity.” Missourians have avoided one redundancy trap; they say “median” on highway signs, whereas the Oklahoma Turnpike has a “center median.”
A recent local add for “oral mouthwash” posed the intriguing speculation of what the alternative to “oral” might be. The record for local redundancies was established in the early 1950s by an ad for a “female waitress.”
A punctuation feature common in, but not restricted to, the Ozarks which Randolph did not cite is the Ozark possessive plural. The Ozarker has a penchant for using an apostrophe whenever an “s” is added. As a result, billboards and other signs advertising everything from “fresh pear's” to “pizza's” are commonplace. The possessive apostrophe persists into college where “its color” is still punctuated as “it's color.”