# Apparently, the South was right about something! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 26, 2000, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599 "2000-05-26T14:00:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Edlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8797f3/32.png) [@Edlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edlyn)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/61 "2000-05-30T11:53:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, Edlyn, I am a Yankee, so if the problem was that I was acting like myself, then I think my point is intact: Southern “hospitality” isn’t really worthy of the name if Southerners are hospitable to everyone _except_ non-Southerners. If acting like yourself includes: > [@](#): > > **Elelle:** …He was so obnoxiously overbearing and pushy that I found myself slowwwinnnngggg down to compensate for the drag of his yeeha-ness. He had the attitude that no one in this hickfest of a town could possibly live up to his high standards, and so, he would just suffer through the inadequacy of it all. > [@](#): > > **Palmyra:** And Geenius, what Edlyn most likely meant by “being a Yankee” was the all-too-frequent Northern condesention towards Southerners. then you’re a Yankee. If you behave like a typical New Yorker, you’ll earn the title of damnyankee. There’s another little clue to look for on whether you being received well or not and that is if any “small talk” is introduced during the conversation. If not, check your style and attitude. The nicest compliment I ever received after moving here was, “She doesn’t even act like a Yankee!” I credit that to my upbringing. My dad’s a Southerner. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/62 "2000-05-30T12:20:19Z")
> [@](#): > > The only thing I really see that rubs southerns wrong, are all the things the northerns find wrong with the south, as they continue to migrate here. My mother always said there were two kinds of yankees: yankees and damn yankees. To a Southerner, the difference is obvious. Yankees don’t get bashed and are not resented. Damn yankees on the other hand------------- ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/63 "2000-05-30T14:14:45Z")
I have nothing against the “South”, but will any other Texan dopers join me in affirming that, except for the Deep Piney Woods perhaps, we do **not** consider ourselves “Southerners”? Tell you who was right–Sam Houston was right; when that recent unpleasantness occurred, we should have gone our own way again. ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/64 "2000-05-30T16:45:37Z")
I’m far from being overbearing and pushy, at least as long as you’re not demanding that I write my Social Security number on my checks “so that we can collect when your check bounces” (like the guy at the pet store who actually walked me out to the parking lot and wrote down my license plate number when I wouldn’t back down). And believe it or not, not all Northerners come from New York City and shove and swear and honk and say “Youse got a problem wid dat?” Some of us even make eye contact with strangers. Not that it helped me any – I must have had “carpetbagger” tattooed on my forehead or something. The one person I met who exemplified “Southern hospitality” the most was actually a transplant from Connecticut with an affected twang. Anyway, I’m sure all the Southerners here will be pleased to know that I moved back up North the first chance I got. ---
**Author:** ![ultress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7c8e57/32.png) [@ultress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultress)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/65 "2000-05-30T17:10:30Z")
Actually I’m sorry to hear that you moved back up North. It seems that you actually didn’t meet the right type of southerners. We have our share of buttholes here too, just like anywhere else. Sounds like you weren’t really happy here period no matter how you were treated. You seemed to have missed home, and that’s ok, cause anyone would. ---
**Author:** ![soulsling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@soulsling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulsling)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/66 "2000-05-30T17:50:58Z")
just my 2 cents. being a TRUE New Yorker, that is born and raised in NYC, not just the state, Coney Island in Brooklyn to be exact, i’ve found no problems when encountering southerners on my own. I find the best thing the south ever did for me and mine was turn me into the infantry soldier it did. I do believe the south has some of the best Army posts, Ft.Bragg and Benning be the two i trained the hardest at. The ladies were always polite and fine, the gentlemen were always gentlemen, and the only southerners that i had to force eat crow were the ones who outright decided upon finding out i was a New Yorker that suddenly i was as bad as the devil himself was supposed to be. My point of view on New Yorkers is this: Most of them are not New Yorkers, they’re displaced out of towners that are trying really hard to be “New Yorkers”, and screwing up a good name for us REAL New Yorkers. Us real New Yorkers say what we mean, and mean what we say, and don’t beat around the bush with unnecessary politeness, out of politeness. 🙂 My point of view on southerners is this: The home cooking is most usually certain to be the best you’ve ever had, the etiquette is of the highest degree though not always true from heart, they know how to live life to it’s fullest more so then any northerner usually does, and those of them that are not well educated or lacking in the motivation to learn for themselves what it is to be a yankee, they can shack up with the New Yorker northerners that fall in the same boat about southerners. I do love my grits. and thats all i have to say about that. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![h\_thur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@h\_thur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h_thur)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/67 "2000-05-30T17:51:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > I am from the South, as are many family generations before me. Specifically, I have lived all around Louisiana and in the Memphis area. Kinfolk in east Texas and Arkansas. _Never_ did I come across pre-sweetened tea until I moved to North Carolina. Nobody in my family, nobody I ever knew, no establishment I ever visited. Louisiana is about as deep South as you can get, and my family takes a back seat to nobody in being Southern-proud (in the gentille, southern-nobility way; not redneck). > \*\* Sorry, but Louisiana is it’s own little world and doesn’t count as the “deep south”. (I have always referred to it as “a third world country right here in the USA”. I have lived there. Half of my family is from there: New Orleans, Gueydan, Baton Rouge, etc.) I never ran across sweet tea in Louisiana either, and I have relatives that live in Gueydan! Living in Texas, I frequently am asked when I order tea whether I want sweet or “unsweet”, especially in small towns. ---
**Author:** ![h\_thur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@h\_thur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h_thur)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2000, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599/68 "2000-05-30T18:19:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > I have nothing against the “South”, but will any other Texan dopers join me in affirming that, except for the Deep Piney Woods perhaps, we do **not** consider ourselves “Southerners”. > \*\* And we still can secede, though I keep waiting for it to happen… I agree with you **Doghouse Reilly**. We are **Texans**. I was so proud when I went to Europe in college with our orchestra. The rudest people I encountered were in Austria, but they mellowed out considerably when they found out were were from Texas. Apparently that cancels out their opinion of rude Americans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-south-was-right-about-something/20599.md?page=3)