By DAN LANGFORD

I saw a friend of mine last week who came to Georgia 20 years ago from the Midwest to work in the construction industry. He had read my inaugural posting and wanted to know why I hadn’t mentioned “winders,” which he said he heard all about in home-building when he first came to Georgia. I told him that nobody with any class or breeding would ever say “winder” — the correct pronunciation of the word “window” for any native Georgian of good social standing is “win’-duh.” We could, of course, say “win’-dow,” but that would sound uppity. Who wants to sound like an accent-less TV talking head? “Win’-der,” on the other hand, just goes way too far toward the other extreme.

“Win’-duh” sounds just right — not uptight and not hillbilly. So let’s all open our “win-duhs” now and enjoy the fresh spring breezes.

Dan Langford