Explaining The Southern USA To NonSoutherners

[ladyamylynn]

JJ, that is exactly it, thank you.

ladyamylynn, I'm sorry I was rude to you. Don't know what got into me. :oops:

No worries!

[RosyDaisy]

poke salad

Umm....that's poke salat with a "t" on the end. Love me some poke salat! You have to get or pick the young leaves not the purplish ones. Those are poisonous. There's a poke salat festival held every year not too far from Tiny Town.

My Southern Cred: born, raised, and live in the rural South. No way would I leave here. I'll stay and fight for change.

[1004srs]

The spelling/pronunciation of poke depends on your family and region, I think. We also call Amalgamation cake - Maltamation cake.

[Dutch Cookie]

I come from the far north and am a damned Yankee. I love this thread.

I'm gonna go there and ask a question. Opinions on Gone With The Wind?

Love your Avatar with Queen Beatrix :D

[teachergirl]

just want to chime in...I am from PA, have lived in Vegas, Albany, Northern VA and now TN. What strikes me most about living here is the reluctance to "let issues go" such as pro choice, gay marriage, creationism in schools, etc. I do think the South is behind in those areas. While this state is ecnomically struggling, we have legislators fighting over teachers saying the word gay. I was told we dont give homework on Wednesdays because that is a "church night". My coworkers are some the kindest, generous, wonderufl people I know. They also had a level of paranoia about Obama being elected again, guns, gay marriage all courtesy of their ( usually) Baptist preacher. I like living here for now, do I want my daughter exposed to that? No. Not to mention the schools are sub par compared to the NE. Don't want to offend anyone, just my observations.

[formergothardite]

Just reading this thread. And now I want a Moon Pie and an RC Cola.

Damn it! Now I want one too. Do they still even sell RC Cola? They used to be everywhere when I was growing up, but I haven't seen one in a long time.

Sun Drop, those things are fucking awesome.

[Triplet3]

The word "Yankee" is so out of the realm of my personal experience (I have lived in the Midwest my entire life, and my family didn't come to America until about 40 years after the Civil War) that I would be REALLY confused if someone called me that. I wouldn't know if they were joking or serious.

In England most people don't know that 'Yankee' only refers to Americans in the North, so over here the words 'Yankees' or 'Yanks' tend to be used as terms for Americans in general.

[FaustianSlip]

I'm a born and raised Mainer, but both of my parents are "from away." Mom's from Jersey, my father's family are all from West Virginia, and my father was born in Louisiana. My grandmother on my father's side would make "hillbilly hotdogs," and while I never knew her to be racist at all, she did occasionally use politically incorrect/outmoded language to refer to people of other races (never anything like the N-word, more stuff like "Oriental" instead of "Asian"). No Confederate flags or anything of the sort, though I believe somewhere, there is one of those old-timey photos of me as a kid dressed up as a Confederate soldier that I got taken on a trip to Gettysburg, more because I was a huge Civil War buff as a kid than anything else, and at the time, aspects of the whole "Lost Cause" narrative probably struck a chord in me. Then I started reading about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, and any flirtation with the Confederacy was all over. I do remember my grandmother being tickled pink when her Yankee granddaughter knew the names of both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson's horses. My grandfather, also from West Virginia, was the first in his family to go to college, I believe, and the two of them lived abroad a couple of times as adults, which is pretty mindblowing, when I think about it now.

I think Maine shares some characteristics with the South, actually; Mainers tend to be a fairly independent lot, and there's a definite pride in differentiating ourselves from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. We can be a bit clannish- you can live in Maine for twenty years and still be "from away" if you weren't born there. We also have plenty of rednecks, though I always grew up hearing them referred to as "the salt of the earth." Good people, but very folksy and working class, I guess is how I'd define it. The religion thing is much, much less of an issue in Maine, though, and while Maine is overwhelmingly white, I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard racist talk from people. I think Mainers are generally less apt to get up in your business about your personal life; the general attitude is that if you're not hurting anyone, it's not really anyone else's concern. I was shocked that gay marriage didn't pass the first time it was on the state ballot, in part because of that mindset.

The "Yankee" thing doesn't necessarily bother me, nor does being referred to as a "Yank" by Brits or Aussies or whatever, but it's all in the delivery. I know the difference between someone referring to me as a Yankee in passing and saying "Yankee" like what they really want to say is "asshole." My experiences down South have generally been limited but positive, but I don't think I could ever live there permanently. As a non-Christian and a liberal, it would be a tough row to hoe in a lot of places.

[dawbs]

Only to skip back a few pages...the 'redneck' definition does vary by region...

I consider Red Green to be the ultimate Midwestern US Redneck...but he's Canadian. :D

(For those who don't know and love Red Green, a non-broken public link:

http://www.redgreen.com/

)

[debrand]

Faustinslip, I thought the phrase, "tough row to hoe," was southern. My grandmother used to say that a lot.

[darareaksmey]

Could someone clue in a clueless Canadian here? What states are you all considering part of "The South"? Google is being unhelpful in that it seems to have as many different answers as hits. :S

Though this is only my opinion, here's what I consider the hardcore south:

North Carolina

South Carolina

Georgia

Alabama

Mississippi

Louisiana

Tennessee

Here's what I consider border states, mostly southern:

Kentucky

West Virginia

Arkansas

These I have a hard time categorizing, because I think parts of these are quite southern and parts are definitely something else:

Virginia

Florida

Here's what isn't the south, because in my mind it's the southwest:

Texas

Oklahoma

Here's a couple of states that Southern Living magazine often features, but again, I don't think of them as the south:

Missouri

Delaware

And Maryland is the north, to me.

These are just my own observations from extensive travel and from knowing people from these states who identify one way or another. I know people who live in Cincinnati who think of themselves as southerners--weird.

ETA: And I scratch my head at folks who call Washington DC a southern city. It's located there, but it's its own little continent!

[HereticHick]

Wildflower, do you love the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter" as much as I do? I can't explain why--I just love it!

I also feel that folks in New York City are friendlier that New Englanders. But that's based on narrow experiences. Quiet introversion can be misinterpreted as rudeness. Mr. HereticHick spent 8 years in university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and found Bostonians rude and standoffish the whole time (on top of the fact that everyone assumed that he was there to play football because he was large and Southern, and therefore didn't get into the school on academic merit).

I also marvel at the number of churches in the South--my home county has over 100 Protestant churches, most are not large enough to support their pastors full time. Its all these Gil Bates, who just decided to round up a few other friends & declare themselves preachers. My mother has always speculated that all these churches are really inefficient and a train on the economy--if there were fewer, larger churches, they could have big pretty buildings, nice pipe organs (instead of dinky pianos), full time employees, and a variety of social services--day care centers, soup kitchens, food pantries, etc.

When I go to Australia, husband and I marvel at how FEW churches there are compared to the American South!

I live in Maryland now, and although its south of the Mason-Dixon line (the M-D line is simply the state borders between Maryland, Pennsylvania & Delaware), I don't consider it southern at all, except maybe a bit down south on the Eastern Shore. Too much Catholic and German influence in the state to make it southern!

And here is something interesting I read recently: The least Catholic state in the US is Tennessee.

[gibbsgirls]

I was born/raised in southern MD. I do consider myself southern (we ARE below the Mason-Dixon Line :) ). Most of my family is from the rural areas of southern VA & and think debrand summed up Southerners pretty well. I was fundie/fundie lite for years and have now moved VERY far from it and have removed myself from a lot of the traditional "southern ways." I won't give up my sweet tea, though!

The printing on my uncle's (who lives in Lynchburg; right next door to Liberty U) hat expresses their feelings on religion perfectly - "American by Birth; Southern by the Grace of God!"

[BravaAmica]

Oh, me too!

I was told once by my 8th grade lit teacher that president's wife at Clemson University was sometimes called Moon Pie as the president was R.C. Edwards. Don't know if that's true, but it's a fun story.

My church used to have Moon Pie Sunday- where the Congregation would get to eat Moon Pies and drink RC Cola during the service. You never knew when it was coming- it was always during the summer, when attendance was low. You'd show up, it'd be Moon Pie Sunday and you knew the service was going to be short and then there'd be a picnic after.

Oh, and I made Chicken and Dumplings last night for dinner. Y'all have too much power over me, lol.

[debrand]

Sweet tea is the one thing that is more logical in the south. Sugar is added to the tea while it is hot. This means that the sugar dissolves and you actually use less of it for the same sweetness. The first time I left the south, I was shocked when the waitress brought me my own sugar to put in the tea. What the heck? I ended up with a nasty mess at the bottom of the glass.

I don't drink a lot of tea because I grew up with very strong, very sweet tea and I still like it that way. However, I also like being healthy and at my current weight. I usually don't drink soda either.

By the way, in many parts of the south, soda is soda, not pop. In some households in NC, all soda is Coke. Do not ask me the rational behind calling Mt Dew or Dr. Pepper a Coke.

I've met many people from the Northeast and I never thought that they were ruder than any other group.

[darareaksmey]

Sweet tea is the one thing that is more logical in the south. Sugar is added to the tea while it is hot. This means that the sugar dissolves and you actually use less of it for the same sweetness. The first time I left the south, I was shocked when the waitress brought me my own sugar to put in the tea. What the heck? I ended up with a nasty mess at the bottom of the glass.

I don't drink a lot of tea because I grew up with very strong, very sweet tea and I still like it that way. However, I also like being healthy and at my current weight. I usually don't drink soda either.

By the way, in many parts of the south, soda is soda, not pop. In some households in NC, all soda is Coke. Do not ask me the rational behind calling Mt Dew or Dr. Pepper a Coke.

I still do a double-take when I hear soda called pop! But when I was a kid in SC, we called everything a Coke or a soft drink. I think soda was used more by African-Americans around here when I was a kid; but my dad's family in Pennsylvania also said soda.

[darareaksmey]

I was born/raised in southern MD. I do consider myself southern (we ARE below the Mason-Dixon Line :) ). Most of my family is from the rural areas of southern VA & and think debrand summed up Southerners pretty well. I was fundie/fundie lite for years and have now moved VERY far from it and have removed myself from a lot of the traditional "southern ways." I won't give up my sweet tea, though!

The printing on my uncle's (who lives in Lynchburg; right next door to Liberty U) hat expresses their feelings on religion perfectly - "American by Birth; Southern by the Grace of God!"

Yeah, it's all in people's experience, I guess. :) I have never lived there, but the people I knew from Md. were Beltway types and so seemed, I don't know, less like me. But it'd be the same as saying everyone in SC is like the people at Kiawah Island.

[BravaAmica]

Damn it! Now I want one too. Do they still even sell RC Cola? They used to be everywhere when I was growing up, but I haven't seen one in a long time.

Sun Drop, those things are fucking awesome.

I've seen it in specialty stores out here in the PNW, which makes me laugh. RC Cola, Sundrop and Cheerwine sold in the local posh grocery as "specialty sodas"? :lol: But the local hipsters are happy to pay $2.50 per bottle.

Oh, and once me and some friends happened upon an old gas station out int he middle of nowhere (right before I moved away from NC for good). It sold Sundrop and Cheerwine slushies!!!!

I went to a candy store when i was a kid- The Candy Barrel in the NC mountains. I remember it had all the good candies, even Squirrel Nut Zippers- and you could buy Moon Pies by the pound, lol. And there was an old barrel filled with ice and RC Cola in glass bottles. Or you could get a bottle of Co-cola and the clerk would ask if you wanted peanuts with your Co-cola.

debrand, I remember when I waitressed in NC, people would order a drink "I'll have a Coke?" I'd ask, "What kind?" And 9 times out of 10, it was a Mt. Dew or a Dr. Pepper. Took me awhile to order the soda I wanted instead of asking for a Coke first.

And here's a link to the best Bluegrass radio show, ever. It happens to be on the best radio station, ever. You're welcome.

wncwDOTorg/programs/goin-across-mountain

[Sweetpea1]

I live waaaay north of the Mason Dixon line and my sweet tea would be the envy of Paula Deen. Very strong and very sweet.

[formergothardite]

Cherry-Lemon Sundrop with real cherries and lemons is great too. They used to sell them at a bowling alley when I was a teen.

[clicker dies]

My credentials: born in South Florida but was moved to the mountains of NC when I was six. Other than visits to family out of state I've lived here and attended school (through undergrad) here ever since. My family is surprised that I don't have a southern accent (it's your general, non-specific American) however I've been able to fake one since elementary school. Apparently when my parents would ask me how school was back in the day I used to put on the accent of my peers to answer.

Even though I've spent the majority of my life in NC and call it my home state, I've found that since I wasn't born here and my family isn't from here at all I'm not really considered ~southern~. I don't have ties to the land or its history, and neither do I have numerous kin all over the area. Not that it bothers me much and people aren't rude about it. We're just out of towners, :lol:

Anybody else experience that?

[darareaksmey]

My credentials: born in South Florida but was moved to the mountains of NC when I was six. Other than visits to family out of state I've lived here and attended school (through undergrad) here ever since. My family is surprised that I don't have a southern accent (it's your general, non-specific American) however I've been able to fake one since elementary school. Apparently when my parents would ask me how school was back in the day I used to put on the accent of my peers to answer.

Even though I've spent the majority of my life in NC and call it my home state, I've found that since I wasn't born here and my family isn't from here at all I'm not really considered ~southern~. I don't have ties to the land or its history, and neither do I have numerous kin all over the area. Not that it bothers me much and people aren't rude about it. We're just out of towners, :lol:

Anybody else experience that?

Oh yeah. In Charleston, if you can't trace generations of your forebears here and show that they are buried in one of about half a dozen important cemeteries in the city, then you ain't from here. Never mind that I was born only 90 miles up the road. I may as well have been born in Timbuktu.

[IceQueen]

When I moved to the Chicago area I was at a school sporting event and I bought a soda. I asked for a coke and I was going to respond with the kind when she asked, but the woman handed me a can of coke. So strange :lol:

I lived the the south most of my life. I was born there, but I was told by a classmate that since my parents are "Yankees" I was not a "true southerner". I swore I would never move back, but recently I've felt a pull to move back its weird.

[clicker dies]

Glad I'm not alone in my non-Southern Southernness, lol

I have an Italian name, so right off the bat people think I'm an outsider :dance:

[hapamama]

Rednecks aren't confined to the South. Go east of Portland, OR, and you'll see some of the reddest rednecks ever in the Columbia Gorge.

The southern end of the Central Valley of California (Kern County in particular) gets pretty redneck too.