Please explain Southern-style communication to a clueless Yankee
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Anonymous
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"Bless her heart" also allows you to say really mean shit about people.
Ex: "That girl is just so ugly, bless her heart". You're excused because you said it in a sickly sweet voice, too. I'm from Tennessee, and went to college in Georgia. PP had it right, watch GCB, you'll get it. |
Anonymous
Yes, but unlike Southerners, when Northerners say these things, they actually mean it. |
Anonymous
Southerners mean those things too. It's the other stuff that's two faced. |
Anonymous
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For your edification:
http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Belle-Primer-Princess-Margaret/dp/0385416679 |
Anonymous
Not pp but so its different rules for different things that Southerners are fake about? Ok I would much rather be a loud rude Northerner who did not lie or choose when to be "polite." |
Anonymous
I also grew up in Tennessee. This book was SPOT ON 20 years ago and still is today. |
Anonymous
Things like "please, thank you, excuse me, yes ma'am, no sir" are cut and dry and just good manners, like anywhere else. And of course we mean those. I think the difference between Northerners and Southerners is we are just not as blunt. Northerners are pretty rude in general, but they're all like that, so nobody cares. If someone from New York says "Are these shoes ugly?", someone else from New York would probably just say, "Yeah." Or, like a coworker I used to have, just offer their unsolicited opinion on the shoes' ugliness and then call it "being blunt." (FYI, if someone asks your opinion and you answer truthfully, that's blunt. If you just walk up to someone and say some rude shit, that's just being rude.) In the South, we might hate those shoes, but we're probably not going to tell you. "They make your legs look good!" "The heel is a nice height." Something, anything, other than saying, "Your shoes are pretty hideous." It's just this complete aversion to wanting to be seen as rude. I don't always think the baby is cute or the shirt is pretty or the drink is good, but if someone asks me, I'm sure as shit not going to say anything other than something nice. |
Anonymous
I feel Southern men do more of the things such as: holding a door open for a female, letting a female step forward onto an elevator first, opening a female's car door, etc. Also: letting older people walk in front of you (such as exiting an elevator first, or stepping onto an elevator first), or giving up a seat for an elderly person (basically, anyone older than you) or for females. I never really paid attention to these things before, thinking them the natural order of the universe  , but when I went to college (Midwest, but drew people from every region of the US, so what I am mentioning next is not targeting Midwesterners), I found myself pretty shocked and actually hurt or offended if people did not do these things! I know it sounds silly now, but I did feel like these folks were being rude and were just generally a bit more clueless than the people I had been used to at home. I had a boyfriend and a BFF from Calif. and I used to talk to each of them about this and they both thought, individually, that it was absolutley insane for me to pay attention to these things, and that they were so much more enlightened and easy-breezy to treat everyone, regardless of gender or age, etc., in the same egalitarian fashion. However, I to thsi day still prefer to follow the "rules" I listed above, and I must confess I do feel most comfortable around folks who do these things too! So, this is all to say: Northerners (and other regions), it's not that we consider you rude, but it's just we've had it so hammered into us -- and reinforced by the social norms around us -- that it IS what Polite Peole (with a capital P and P) DOOOO, that yeah, the first knee-jerk reaction, when you see someone NOT doing it is, "Bless your heart, so-and-so just stepped onto the elevator in front of me." Or, what-have-you.
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Anonymous
| 10:25: PEOPLE not peole -- sheesh. |
Anonymous
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OP here. These responses are hilarious, and I really do mean that. (-:
I do the basic polite mannerisms such as please, thank you, greeting strangers on the street (except in busy downtown DC), giving up seats to elderly, not criticizing people directly, etc. The one difference is that people from my mid-Atlantic hometown generally wouldn't go out of their way to make a polite comment on something they found displeasing (ugly shoes, for example). Most people I know from my hometown probably wouldn't say anything, wishing to avoid focusing on something awkward. On the other hand, people from my hometown will say "Let's get together sometime," even if they don't mean it. I personally avoid doing that, but then again, I know I'm a bit slow on the take in some social situations. I'm going to check out that book, thanks! |
Anonymous
| Thanks for the GCB reference. I hadn't heard of that show. I'm going to watch on Hulu later. |
Anonymous
| What does GCB stand for? |
Anonymous
According to this is stands for "Good Christian Bitches." I like the show even more now. http://www.metro.us/philadelphia/entertainment/article/1114440--what-does-gcb-stand-for-a-lot-of-texas-sized-drama |
Anonymous
| Wasnt GCB cancelled? |
Anonymous
Yeah, I just found out. Bummer! I got some good laughs while it was on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCB_(TV_series) |