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On Being Southern


Cybear

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I think the influx of non-southerners to an southern area makes an area feel less southern if you will (such as Norfolk/VB area) so the southern effect is less - we have few BBQ places esp for a 'southern' town - where other areas (Richmond) retain a lof of their southern feel. Even so I feel Va overall seems less southern than NC (where I am from) but I will save that for another thread.

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The day that Louisiana starts to declare itself as as Mid-Atlantic state, is the day I officially declare that absolutely nothing makes sense in this world. ;)

What about the South versus the Deep South? Is that distinction real today?

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From the broader sense of the region, I think it has to do with heritage. All the states of the confederacy (VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, east TX, AR, TN) is the most southern states. Depending on who you talk to, the South means something different to different groups. The south has changed dramatically over the past 50 years and people need to take that into account when excluding or including states into the south i.e. Florida or Texas.

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I think the influx of non-southerners to an southern area makes an area feel less southern if you will (such as Norfolk/VB area) so the southern effect is less - we have few BBQ places esp for a 'southern' town - where other areas (Richmond) retain a lof of their southern feel. Even so I feel Va overall seems less southern than NC (where I am from) but I will save that for another thread.

Same thing goes on in the Triangle. Between the dozen or so full time employees at my company, our staff hails from Philadelphia, New York City, Wilmington DE, Buffalo, west Texas, upstate New York, New Jersey, Harrisburg PA, and I'm from Boston. There's only two or three native North Carolinians here (who we make fun of for saying "y'all").

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I really don't think about being southern or not. Too many people moving around this country now. I would say it would have mattered 50 years ago but I've grown up with people from all over the country and from other countries. I think people just need to worry about being an American and leave the civil war in the history books.

Russ, being "southern" isn't only about the civil war. People from New England are also regionally-minded as southerners. Midwesterners are too. Come to think of it, everyone is.

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"Y'all" has always been a weird word for me. I almost never type y'all on a forum or anything like that, because I just hate looking at the word, it just never seems to look right. So instead, I normally use "you guys." But I never say you guys when I'm talking to people through my day, I always use y'all and like it much better that way. From the "y'all comin" to the classic "how y'all doin?" ;) For me, the fact that it is slightly faster just throwing in y'all than saying you guys is nice, but it's mostly just the fact that I've grown up saying y'all, and trying to suddenly begin to say "you guys" in my everyday life instead, would just be weird.

In my late teens and early twenties (1995-1999), I allowed my views of traditionally "southern" terms to be dictated by how the media portrayed them. I wanted to lose aspects of my southern accent. Growing up in metro Atlanta, I never had a thick twang or drawl, but my accent was obviously there, albeit mild. I was consciously thinking about how I talked. I actually "talked" myself out of a southern accent because I tried to talk in a non-southern manner. It worked, and for two years I was constantly asked where I grew up. People couldn't believe that I was born in the south. After about a year of consciously trying to not sound "southern", I didn't. However, after about age twenty-two, I realize how ridiculous I had been. I had actually been ashamed of who I was, where I was from, and the way I talked, without reason. I had allowed people to dictate the way I should talk. Around that time, I began to listen to country music. I really enjoyed the lyrics, as well as the twangy accents. Perhaps a little of it rubbed off on me, but my relaxed attitude about a southern accent, coupled with living in the south, allowed my southern accent to naturally return. Granted, it's not a thick accent, people no longer question whether I was born in the south.

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Right now it is a good thing to be southern if you can believe that. I have moved around so much that my accent has gotten less noticable but people still know. I can't count how many times people ask me where I'm from and they say hey I have a relative who just moved to Raleigh or I am thinking of moving to the south.

What makes a person southern is of course the drawl. When you hear a norhtern accent what do you ask them. "Hey you from up north." They are proud to claim it. And by all means don't confuse a Brooklyn accent with a person from Boston or Rhode Island. They all have differnet speak and are proud of it. I am proud of my drawl. Although mine wasn't that bad but you could tell I was from the south. The thing is telling if I was from NC or Georgia. There is a differnce and we all should be proud of it.

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In my late teens and early twenties (1995-1999), I allowed my views of traditionally "southern" terms to be dictated by how the media portrayed them. I wanted to lose aspects of my southern accent. Growing up in metro Atlanta, I never had a thick twang or drawl, but my accent was obviously there, albeit mild. I was consciously thinking about how I talked. I actually "talked" myself out of a southern accent because I tried to talk in a non-southern manner. It worked, and for two years I was constantly asked where I grew up. People couldn't believe that I was born in the south. After about a year of consciously trying to not sound "southern", I didn't. However, after about age twenty-two, I realize how ridiculous I had been. I had actually been ashamed of who I was, where I was from, and the way I talked, without reason. I had allowed people to dictate the way I should talk. Around that time, I began to listen to country music. I really enjoyed the lyrics, as well as the twangy accents. Perhaps a little of it rubbed off on me, but my relaxed attitude about a southern accent, coupled with living in the south, allowed my southern accent to naturally return. Granted, it's not a thick accent, people no longer question whether I was born in the south.

I agree. There is pressure down here to, um, change your accent so as to not to sound ignorant. And Southerners do it to each other as well. I remember a girl who was from south Georgia being asked over and over again in college to say "flower;" she apparenlty said something to the effect of "flyer" or something like that. I just try and speak and however I sound is how I sound. As far as Southern goes, to me anyone who grows up in the South is Southern, whether you like it or not. And as far as Virginia, I've been there many times, and the only thing that saves that place from being totally Southern is the south suburbs of D.C. and all of the military bases and government installations. I go to North Carolina constantly and I can't tell a difference between the NC accents and the GA accents.

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I agree. There is pressure down here to, um, change your accent so as to not to sound ignorant.

It's actually not that uncommon in the north, well, in greater Boston anyway, for people to try to shake their accents. I took a class in college that was focused on just that. I had to learn to change the shape of my mouth to avoid nasality and to introduce the letter "R" into my vocabulary. Pretty intense stuff.

I wonder if going to college, even colleges in the south, sometimes lead people to part with their drawls. Is it related to how smart (or not smart) you might think you sound? I used to think anyone with a drawl sounded pretty dumb, but that was before I heard Annie Savoy in Bull Durham.

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I agree. There is pressure down here to, um, change your accent so as to not to sound ignorant. And Southerners do it to each other as well. I remember a girl who was from south Georgia being asked over and over again in college to say "flower;" she apparenlty said something to the effect of "flyer" or something like that. I just try and speak and however I sound is how I sound. As far as Southern goes, to me anyone who grows up in the South is Southern, whether you like it or not. And as far as Virginia, I've been there many times, and the only thing that saves that place from being totally Southern is the south suburbs of D.C. and all of the military bases and government installations. I go to North Carolina constantly and I can't tell a difference between the NC accents and the GA accents.

Linguistically there are often many "accent" pockets within a single state, the point of that being that southern and northern GA have slighly differing ones, as in SC and several in NC, just to mention a few. Generally, to me, maybe I have a really anal ear, GA's is not like NC's. I have an uncle in high country SC (not sure what part of SC he actually grew up in), I really wish I could say some of his words the way he does, they are so cool, and I am even good at mimicing sounds. 'Coors Light' is something like "Coeurrrs" Light, with a little uptwist at the beginning, never heard that anywhere else, even in other parts of SC.

Anyway, Southern accents sometimes do sound ignorant, and sometimes they don't, as with anyone, it comes down to how used you are to it, and what is being said. My sister is from Calhoun, GA, and has the thickest accent in the world, but she also talks at about 100 miles an hour and can easily out talk and out wit a New Yorker, I've seen it on many occassions. They don't think she's ignorant for long (using that as an example because we've lived there). Kelly Pickler on the other hand, well, she didn't exactly give the nation a good impression of NC, but oh well, we really do need to lose the self-loathing many Southerners have for their accents. The irony is that one day in the future it will be cool to have a Southern accent. You heard it here first. :)

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Linguistically there are often many "accent" pockets within a single state, the point of that being that southern and northern GA have slighly differing ones, as in SC and several in NC, just to mention a few. Generally, to me, maybe I have a really anal ear, GA's is not like NC's. I have an uncle in high country SC (not sure what part of SC he actually grew up in), I really wish I could say some of his words the way he does, they are so cool, and I am even good at mimicing sounds. 'Coors Light' is something like "Coeurrrs" Light, with a little uptwist at the beginning, never heard that anywhere else, even in other parts of SC.

Anyway, Southern accents sometimes do sound ignorant, and sometimes they don't, as with anyone, it comes down to how used you are to it, and what is being said. My sister is from Calhoun, GA, and has the thickest accent in the world, but she also talks at about 100 miles an hour and can easily out talk and out wit a New Yorker, I've seen it on many occassions. They don't think she's ignorant for long (using that as an example because we've lived there). Kelly Pickler on the other hand, well, she didn't exactly give the nation a good impression of NC, but oh well, we really do need to lose the self-loathing many Southerners have for their accents. The irony is that one day in the future it will be cool to have a Southern accent. You heard it here first. :)

Maybe I need to bump up the old southern accents topic again. I don't have any hard evidence on this but I've come across quite a few people in other countries who say they like southern American accents the best out of the American accents. The stigma seems to mainly just be related to just our own country.

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I agree. There is pressure down here to, um, change your accent so as to not to sound ignorant. And Southerners do it to each other as well. I remember a girl who was from south Georgia being asked over and over again in college to say "flower;" she apparenlty said something to the effect of "flyer" or something like that. I just try and speak and however I sound is how I sound. As far as Southern goes, to me anyone who grows up in the South is Southern, whether you like it or not. And as far as Virginia, I've been there many times, and the only thing that saves that place from being totally Southern is the south suburbs of D.C. and all of the military bases and government installations. I go to North Carolina constantly and I can't tell a difference between the NC accents and the GA accents.

North Carolina's Piedmont is very familiar to the Piedmont area of Georgia, in terms of accents, as well as the general vibe and feel of the area.

Linguistically there are often many "accent" pockets within a single state, the point of that being that southern and northern GA have slighly differing ones, as in SC and several in NC, just to mention a few. Generally, to me, maybe I have a really anal ear, GA's is not like NC's. I have an uncle in high country SC (not sure what part of SC he actually grew up in), I really wish I could say some of his words the way he does, they are so cool, and I am even good at mimicing sounds. 'Coors Light' is something like "Coeurrrs" Light, with a little uptwist at the beginning, never heard that anywhere else, even in other parts of SC.

Anyway, Southern accents sometimes do sound ignorant, and sometimes they don't, as with anyone, it comes down to how used you are to it, and what is being said. My sister is from Calhoun, GA, and has the thickest accent in the world, but she also talks at about 100 miles an hour and can easily out talk and out wit a New Yorker, I've seen it on many occassions. They don't think she's ignorant for long (using that as an example because we've lived there). Kelly Pickler on the other hand, well, she didn't exactly give the nation a good impression of NC, but oh well, we really do need to lose the self-loathing many Southerners have for their accents. The irony is that one day in the future it will be cool to have a Southern accent. You heard it here first. :)

Kelly Pickler is very representative of Stanly County (Albemarle), North Carolina.

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Maybe I need to bump up the old southern accents topic again. I don't have any hard evidence on this but I've come across quite a few people in other countries who say they like southern American accents the best out of the American accents. The stigma seems to mainly just be related to just our own country.

Right, but I don't think the stigma is so prevalent anymore (the southern hick stereotype, or whatever you want to call it), but when I was around 9 or 10 in NJ/NY, I would be made fun of by the kids when they found out I was from N.C. They'd say I lived on a farm with cows and whatnot, and I was a little perplexed, I tried to tell them I lived in a city, but then I caught on that farms/rurality was negative to them, and what they thought of as the south. So I pointed out how NY is the leading producer of many agriculture products and cows/dairy and that half of NJ was farmland as well (I read encyclopedias as a kid). Really was ridiculous, but don't see it much at all now, really. I guess it helps when corporate locations and opportunity have forced so many to move down south.

Have a link to that topic? Searched but returned over 350 pages for "southern accents"....

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Southern accents vary greatly.

In North Carolina's case, we have multiple accents.

I remember on UNC-TV that NC has more various accents and dialects than the entire Western US.

I agree with Scraper Enthusiast that the Piedmont sections of VA, NC, SC, and GA have similarities. But that is where those similarities end.......in the urban areas. My mom told me back when she was in the hospital that she asked the nurse where she was from because of her different accent. The nurse had a different accent than the accent around here. Turns out she was from Georgia. Overall the NC accent is different than the VA and GA accents. There is a reason for the "North Cackalack" reference. :P

NC basically has an Appalachian/Upper Atlantic South mix of an accent. The Piedmont is where the two blend.

In Western NC, the accent is very Appalachian. And in Eastern NC, the accent is very Southeast coastal.

Also, I overheard a guy from Missouri talk when getting gas down in Sanford. The cashier asked where he was from and he said: "Missourah". I think he had a Missouri Ozark accent. His accent actually sounded more southern than the overall NC accent. Weird. :shok:

Here is a US accent/dialect map:

dialectsUS.gif

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North Carolina's Piedmont is very familiar to the Piedmont area of Georgia, in terms of accents, as well as the general vibe and feel of the area.

Kelly Pickler is very representative of Stanly County (Albemarle), North Carolina.

Ah, that makes sense given that I'm usually in the Greensboro area.

Triadcat, I'm not really sure. To me, they sound the same in Greensboro as they do in Augusta for the most part (although I don't typically hear any old-time Southern accents that sound like Rhett Butler like I do down in Augusta, but those treats are few and far between :) ).

I agree the accents of north and south Georgia are totally different. I was horrified when I was younger, we asked this kid from Blakely, Georgia, what they did for fun. His response was: "Usually, we just cruise around, but sometimes we go over to Al-Benny (Albany) and cruise around the super Walmart."

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It's actually not that uncommon in the north, well, in greater Boston anyway, for people to try to shake their accents. I took a class in college that was focused on just that. I had to learn to change the shape of my mouth to avoid nasality and to introduce the letter "R" into my vocabulary. Pretty intense stuff.

I wonder if going to college, even colleges in the south, sometimes lead people to part with their drawls. Is it related to how smart (or not smart) you might think you sound? I used to think anyone with a drawl sounded pretty dumb, but that was before I heard Annie Savoy in Bull Durham.

Wow I didn't think it was possible for people from Boston to say the letter "R." :)

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Southern accents vary greatly.

In North Carolina's case, we have multiple accents.

I remember on UNC-TV that NC has more various accents and dialects than the entire Western US.

I agree with Scraper Enthusiast that the Piedmont sections of VA, NC, SC, and GA have similarities. But that is where those similarities end.......in the urban areas. My mom told me back when she was in the hospital that she asked the nurse where she was from because of her different accent. The nurse had a different accent than the accent around here. Turns out she was from Georgia. Overall the NC accent is different than the VA and GA accents. There is a reason for the "North Cackalack" reference. :P

NC basically has an Appalachian/Upper Atlantic South mix of an accent. The Piedmont is where the two blend.

In Western NC, the accent is very Appalachian. And in Eastern NC, the accent is very Southeast coastal.

Also, I overheard a guy from Missouri talk when getting gas down in Sanford. The cashier asked where he was from and he said: "Missourah". I think he had a Missouri Ozark accent. His accent actually sounded more southern than the overall NC accent. Weird. :shok:

Here is a US accent/dialect map:

dialectsUS.gif

Interesting graphic, more detailed than many superficial ones I have seen, though I do not agree the blue Upper South area should really be called that or cover that kind of area, which spans from Chesapeake/Maryland to Oklahoma, right through appalachia, the river valley and the Ozarks without any kind of division. I'm not a linguist, but that just isn't accurate.

You are right, Missouri, and Illinois for that matter, experience noticeable changes as you cross their states. What is really a fun trip is to travel up the length of I-95 up the east coast. You can notice accent changes every hour were you to stop at these intervals, it's so cool and goes to show you both how small the world has become due to just the automobile and it's differences.

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Right, but I don't think the stigma is so prevalent anymore (the southern hick stereotype, or whatever you want to call it), but when I was around 9 or 10 in NJ/NY, I would be made fun of by the kids when they found out I was from N.C. They'd say I lived on a farm with cows and whatnot, and I was a little perplexed, I tried to tell them I lived in a city, but then I caught on that farms/rurality was negative to them, and what they thought of as the south. So I pointed out how NY is the leading producer of many agriculture products and cows/dairy and that half of NJ was farmland as well (I read encyclopedias as a kid). Really was ridiculous, but don't see it much at all now, really. I guess it helps when corporate locations and opportunity have forced so many to move down south.

Have a link to that topic? Searched but returned over 350 pages for "southern accents"....

Here we go.

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12559

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Southern accents vary greatly.

In North Carolina's case, we have multiple accents.

I remember on UNC-TV that NC has more various accents and dialects than the entire Western US.

I agree with Scraper Enthusiast that the Piedmont sections of VA, NC, SC, and GA have similarities. But that is where those similarities end.......in the urban areas. My mom told me back when she was in the hospital that she asked the nurse where she was from because of her different accent. The nurse had a different accent than the accent around here. Turns out she was from Georgia. Overall the NC accent is different than the VA and GA accents. There is a reason for the "North Cackalack" reference. :P

NC basically has an Appalachian/Upper Atlantic South mix of an accent. The Piedmont is where the two blend.

In Western NC, the accent is very Appalachian. And in Eastern NC, the accent is very Southeast coastal.

Also, I overheard a guy from Missouri talk when getting gas down in Sanford. The cashier asked where he was from and he said: "Missourah". I think he had a Missouri Ozark accent. His accent actually sounded more southern than the overall NC accent. Weird. :shok:

Here is a US accent/dialect map:

dialectsUS.gif

Interesting map. Yeah Missouri isn't thought about as much of a southern state but you do get some southern accents in parts of the Ozarks. Ironically in my section of the Ozarks the southern accents start dropping off. The east part of my county has some pretty strong accents very similar to the Ozarks/Appalachian type. But then the west part of the county that seems to drop off and you get a mixture of Midwestern and a Southern accent that's not particularly like the Appalachian type. Looking back on the map I would think that southern accents extend a bit further into Texas in my opinion.

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They'd say I lived on a farm with cows and whatnot, and I was a little perplexed, I tried to tell them I lived in a city, but then I caught on that farms/rurality was negative to them, and what they thought of as the south. So I pointed out how NY is the leading producer of many agriculture products and cows/dairy and that half of NJ was farmland as well (I read encyclopedias as a kid).

Did they beat you up after you said that? :lol: After all that's how Northerners do it.

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Interesting map. Yeah Missouri isn't thought about as much of a southern state but you do get some southern accents in parts of the Ozarks. Ironically in my section of the Ozarks the southern accents start dropping off. The east part of my county has some pretty strong accents very similar to the Ozarks/Appalachian type. But then the west part of the county that seems to drop off and you get a mixture of Midwestern and a Southern accent that's not particularly like the Appalachian type. Looking back on the map I would think that southern accents extend a bit further into Texas in my opinion.

I agree with you that the southern accent should extend farther into Texas. I've heard southern accents as far west as the Midland/Odessa area. Realistically, I've even heard southern accents as far west as parts of the Tucscon, Arizona area.

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Interesting graphic, more detailed than many superficial ones I have seen, though I do not agree the blue Upper South area should really be called that or cover that kind of area, which spans from Chesapeake/Maryland to Oklahoma, right through appalachia, the river valley and the Ozarks without any kind of division. I'm not a linguist, but that just isn't accurate.

You are right, Missouri, and Illinois for that matter, experience noticeable changes as you cross their states. What is really a fun trip is to travel up the length of I-95 up the east coast. You can notice accent changes every hour were you to stop at these intervals, it's so cool and goes to show you both how small the world has become due to just the automobile and it's differences.

You notice this difference most pronounced between Richmond to Philadelphia. In Richmond, you almost hear a uniform southern accent. There are exceptions, obviously, but overall that is the case. It may not be a thick southern accent, but it's there nonetheless. By the time you get to Fredericksburg, it seems like only half the people speak with a southern accent. By the time you're in the Northern Virginia suburbs, it seems like only 30-40% speak with even a mild southern accent. By the time you're in Maryland, you may be lucky to hear fifteen percent with a southern accent. By the time you're in Philadelphia, it's almost uniformly non-southern.

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