The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls

The Glass Castle: Dialect 1 key example

Part 3: Welch
Explanation and Analysis—The Principal :

When Mom tries to enroll the children at Welch Elementary, the Appalachian dialect in which the school’s principal speaks proves to be an obstacle:

The principal looked at Brian and me, with our unwashed hair and our thin desert clothes. His face took on a sour, skeptical expression. He focused on me, pushed his glasses up his nose, and said something that sounded like “Wuts et tahm sebm?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Et tahm sebm!” he said louder.

I was completely bewildered. I looked at Mom.

“She doesn’t understand your accent,” Mom told the principal. He frowned.