Gloria Jenks, age 12, of Charlotte, North Carolina, for her question:

Why do people up north speak differently?

Let's face it. People are copy cats. Toddlers copy the way their family talks. Children copy their friends so they don't feel out of it. We like to be like the neighbors because it makes us feel we belong. This is how certain accents and other customs get started in different areas. Those who stay close to home never notice their own accents. But when Americans from up north meet Americans from down south, they notice each other's yankee twangs and southern drawls. Some of them make too much of this. They think that people with different accents must be hopeless strangers perhaps even enemies. Too bad, they miss the chance to make new friends.

Sensible Americans steam right ahead, talking listening and understanding each other accents or no accents. They know that the folk up north and the folk down south are not really different. And, of course, these sensible people have a whole country full of friends.