How Do You Define Yourself?

[Adrestia]

I wonder how folks from NM classify TX. NM & AZ are definitely Southwest, right?

[Socrates]

I prefer to define myself as generally amesome.

[Socrates]

"Southern" is more a cultural designation than geographical. A lot of Yankees don't understand that. Someone referred to Florida as the "geographically most southern and culturally least Southern" state in the old confederacy.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1334955141' post='2421394']
"Southern" is more a cultural designation than geographical. A lot of Yankees don't understand that. Someone referred to Florida as the "geographically most southern and culturally least Southern" state in the old confederacy.
[/quote]
It irks me when people call Florida not southern. North Florida and the panhandle are very culturally southern. No one is debating that Tampa, Orlando, and Miami would be "southern" cities, but all points north of Ocala certainly have a southern feel (particularly in the more rural areas).
I would be surprised if any of the other 49 states, save maybe California or New York, have the cultural disparity that Florida does.

[cmotherofpirl]

Pittsburgh really doesn't consider Philly to be part of Pennsylvania, they are a suburb of New York City.

[Vincent Vega]

My folks are from the Steel Valley, so I understand the disparity between eastern and western PA. Even still, I don't think it comes near the difference between those raised in the north of Florida and those raised in the south of the same.

Edited April 21, 2012 by USAirwaysIHS

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Foundation christian, a true fundamentalist. The holy word,The holy sacrements,Prayer Personal and For others and with the saints in heaven and sometimes with the body on earth (mainly Holy mass), The Holy Rosary/meditation on the mysteries and praying with the Holy mother(which i'm almost bone dry on at present ) and Confession of my own sins and confession that God saves(in the church and outside of the body). Outside of christ i'm pretty much a no-one. I do like sports though and when fit can play most of them, oh and i like chess,checkers and card games. Oh also i'm really weak, as in, on my own will i can't even get myself out of bed to face the day. Also a friend told me he is amazed how smart i can be yet so stupid as well, that tag fits me at present coz i'm a black sheep, but i hope one day to be a grey sheep and than hopefully after that a white sheep

Edited April 21, 2012 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[InPersonaChriste]

I feel very blessed to be a Catholic Canadian.
I am probably the most British Canadian i know though (in a stereotypical sense of course). Everything has It's proper order and I am very traditional in all of my views.

Though I do enjoy a good face to face debate.....

Edited April 21, 2012 by InPersonaChriste

[Adrestia]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1334955970' post='2421397']
It irks me when people call Florida not southern. North Florida and the panhandle are very culturally southern. No one is debating that Tampa, Orlando, and Miami would be "southern" cities, but all points north of Ocala certainly have a southern feel (particularly in the more rural areas).
I would be surprised if any of the other 49 states, save maybe California or New York, have the cultural disparity that Florida does.
[/quote]

When I lived in GA, we considered the FL panhandle to be culturally the same as South Georgia, with nice beaches. Atlanta had so many transplants that inside the Perimeter (a big highway) was not counted. Folks would say that the South started outside the Perimeter. People would designate themselves OTP or ITP. The area has grown so much since I left that I doubt the Perimeter is still a legitimate line of demarcation. That being said, I will never give up my 404 area code - it's the sign of an old-school ITPer. It's like having a 212 in Manhattan.

[fides' Jack]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1335022800' post='2421651']
When I lived in GA, we considered the FL panhandle to be culturally the same as South Georgia, with nice beaches. Atlanta had so many transplants that inside the Perimeter (a big highway) was not counted. Folks would say that the South started outside the Perimeter. People would designate themselves OTP or ITP. The area has grown so much since I left that I doubt the Perimeter is still a legitimate line of demarcation. That being said, I will never give up my 404 area code - it's the sign of an old-school ITPer. It's like having a 212 in Manhattan.
[/quote]

You're talking about a 404 area code, and the only thing I can think of is a 404 error code. Not exactly the same thing, but I would probably keep that area code, too, due to the error code.

[Deus te Amat]

From Minnesota, EVERYTHING is part of the South.

[4588686]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1334877782' post='2420939']
I lived in Georgia for 9 years. They will fight you for daring to say that Georgia is not the heart and soul of the South. Ironically, the folks in GA considered TX part of the Southwest, separate from the true South. My friends here in TX take offense to that distinction.
[/quote]

Well it's historically accurate. I wouldn't exclude Texas exactly as a lot of Southerners settled it and they were technically a part of the confederacy (although not the most helpful part). But they aren't the heard of the south, either.

Most people from the actual South don't exactly exclude Texas but they really have their own culture. It's an amorphous boundary.


[quote name='fides' Jack' timestamp='1334939111' post='2421273']
Yes, FQI gets upset when I call Georgia the South East, and Texas the South, even though geographically it's more accurate.
[/quote]

The label is cultural, not geographic. For example, North Carolina is indisputably part of the south. But it's always amusing when my out of state friends at UNC talk about how different the south is from what they expected. Now many of the stearotypes about the south are misguided, but so is their labeling of Chapel Hill NC as part of the south. Geographically it is but culturally the difference between it and most of the actual south is night and day.

[4588686]

[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1334865596' post='2420797']
Ohhh! Thank you. That must be why my personal irreverent definition irks the hell out of Georgians when I call them Yankees just because I happen to live in Florida without snow. It's about the 'War'. Got it now. So do you think they think that I think their great gandpa's wore blue?
[/quote]


Haha, most things about the south go back the the war. Yeah, I wouldn't call Georgians yankees. I mean the south has become very culturally diluted in the last few decades but if their families have history here they'd probably take offense. That really refers to anyone from the North-East. So most people here wouldn't consider people from Missouri as Southerners but they aren't Yankees either.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Hasan

[AccountDeleted]

I define myself as a 'Catholic nun wannabe'. All else is irrelevant to me right now.

[Socrates]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1334955970' post='2421397']
It irks me when people call Florida not southern. North Florida and the panhandle are very culturally southern. No one is debating that Tampa, Orlando, and Miami would be "southern" cities, but all points north of Ocala certainly have a southern feel (particularly in the more rural areas).
I would be surprised if any of the other 49 states, save maybe California or New York, have the cultural disparity that Florida does.
[/quote]
Very true (though I have no personal experience of Florida, but it jives with what I've heard). Many other states have similar differences (often between rural areas and urban areas with a lot of people who immigrated from elsewhere). Rural western Virginia and the NoVa DC metropolitan area (which some old-time locals refer to as "Yankee Virginia" or "Occupied Virginia") are in the same state yet worlds apart.