I need a new pair of britches

On Friday, I visited a friend's farm. They have lots of animals: ponies, horses, ginnies, goats, silkies, donkeys, dogs, etc. They have a baby donkey named Punkin. Punkin thinks she is a dog and runs around the yard like a pet. While I was petting her and talking to her and calling her "Pumpkin," the eight year old corrected me and said, "Her name is Punkin."
That made me realize that I've lost --- not so much my southern accent ---my use of common southern/country words and sayings.
I realized that I talk much differently now than when I was eight years old.
I've always thought of my family and relatives as country folks (Southern too but mostly "country" comes to mind).
Isn't there some kind of child study that shows that children are influenced by their family first and then by their peers? That was the case for me.
We moved from the county to a house inside the city limits when I was 3. Even though we lived in town, we went "to the country" (that's what we called it) quite often to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins - we were the only ones to live in town. So the country life had a huge influence on me. I didn't realize that I talked (tawked) different until third grade. A new girl was in my class and she had just moved to Greeneville from Illinois. One day, her dad said to me, "talk some more, I like to hear how you say things." I didn't know what he was talking about. Here are some of the distinctive words I used:
dawg = dog
britches = pants/jeans
brichey lag = the leg of my pants "I got my brichey lag caught in my bicycle chain."
rag = wash cloth
warsh = wash
ye = you
punkin = pumpkin
ain't = isn't, not, etc
meeilk = milk
far = fire
shoot/dang/dern = shit/damn
dinner = noon meal
supper = evening meal
Maybe I'll think of more examples later.
So in third grade, someone else brought to my attention that I spoke funny. But it didn't faze me or cause me to change the way I spoke.
I was always very good at spelling, but it wasn't until middle school that I realized that the way I spoke contributed to spelling errors. The first time a teacher circled "punkin" in red, I was floored! The real spelling had an M and a second P - holy cow, who knew!!??!!
Late in middle school and early in high school, I started caring much more about my grades. And I was paying a lot of attention in English class (yes, I know you're not supposed to start a sentence with "and," but this is not a term paper). When the teacher told us that "ain't" was not a word, I went home and repeated this information around the supper table. I was met with silence, and they didn't really care. Eventually, I decided that my family needed me to teach them all the cool new facts I was learning. If someone said dawg, I would tell them the correct pronunciation. Unfortunately, my family did not enjoy my speech lessons. They soon started to consider me a snob, and they didn't like being corrected.
Over the years, I have learned that it is better to try to fit in with whomever I am with (yes, I know I'm not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition). So I talk country with my family, and not so country with everyone else. Since I don't write term papers anymore, I've become rusty on all the grammar rules. I can never remember when to use lay/lie or affect/effect. I used to really, really care about all that stuff, but I just don't anymore. But feel free to correct me - it won't hurt my feelings. :)
But I don't say punkin anymore or britches. Although I will be calling the donkey "Punkin." Because that's her name.