I GOT THE IDEAR BY MARION KINGSTON STOCKING

Marion Kingston Stocking taught English and corrected student writing for more than four decades. She has joyfully collected many samples of Maine dialects from her students, as well as from friends and reading. Stocking grew up in a suburb north of Boston where she first became aware of her own New England dialect. In college at Mount Holyoke, she recalls having the pronunciation of a friend corrected by a speech professor to establish a "correct" speech. As she describes in her first chapter, she noted a difference in speech between the Boston speakers and a neighbor from Maine who added an r at the end of the word "idea". Throughout her life, she collected examples of dialect from her students, from the pages of newspapers, and from the works of regional writers attempting to reproduce it. Her lively discussion of the Maine dialect provides sometimes humorous, always enjoyable and thought-provoking reading. 80 Pgs Paperback