As a lifelong California resident, I’d say the vast majority of people simply ignore them. A small minority takes them seriously.
did you seriously think you would be shot for this?? In the US?
It was allegedly a seafood restaurant and they claimed to serve crab cakes. I was young and stupid…
I took a great job in SW Florida in the early 90’s, leaving San Diego to do so.
In my first few days there, a local (and cow orker) took me out for beers. We were standing behind the seated bar patrons … at the bar … of a chain restaurant.
Two (younger, attractive, white) ladies were having the following conversation:
Do, too.
Do not !
Do, too.
Do not !!
When “Do not” turned around and asked me,
“Do I have a n***** butt ?”
I said, “Excuse me ?”
She repeated herself. I was speechless. I simply said, “I’m sorry. I just haven’t heard that word in years.”
“Where you from,” she asked.
“California,” said I.
“Well … welcome to the South.” She turned her back to me.
I looked to my friend – IIRC, a 4th gen Floridian – and said, “Really ?”
He just shook his head ‘yes.’
I also did a fair amount of work in Mississippi, outside of Memphis. I remember asking at a convenience store if they had any fresh bottled juices. She, too, asked where I was from.
“This is the South, Honey,” she said, “where ‘health food’ means you smoke Marlboro Lights’”
Fun stuff 
Well, you can shoot someone who throws popcorn at you in a movie theatre, and the jury will acquit you.
You mean the US where in some areas everybody and his dog carries a gun the way most of us carry wallets? As compared to most countries where guns are rare, strictly regulated, and where carrying them is strictly prohibited except for on-duty police officers?
You mean the US, where this old guy fatally shot a man for texting in a movie theater – and was just acquitted? Or where this guy fatally shot a young man for playing music too loud?
The US had 19,384 firearm homicides in 2020. The number of firearm homicides in the United Kingdom in the same period: 30.
Yes, I’d seriously think you might be shot for this. Especially in the US.
I love deviled crabs. They are basically stuffing with Old Bay Seasoning and just a bit of ground crab mixed together.
Huh, I’m a midwesterner who’s never heard “sack” for anything smaller than potatoes.
But, that’d be FAR easier on the ears than the people who say “BAIG”. The rest of their speech can be melodious, but then they hit that word as harshly as possible.
Where do they get these pronunciations? Hag, fag, nag, baig. And some of them say “melk” for milk… I do not get it.
Sack lunch means lunch in a paper bag.
Last I was there (~2010?) I had some decent food, but the balance of options seemed aimed at college students.
I lived in rural IL a couple times, once as a kid in the early 90s. I think my parents felt it worse than I did. My mother said it felt like going back in time, given the smoking rate, lack of teeth, church recruiting mentioned above, attitudes about women/minorities, etc. This was intended to be and ended up being a temporary stop, but the school was so far behind (e.g. reading Charlotte’s Web along with an audio recording in 4th grade) that we ended up home schooling after finishing the first school year to keep up with wherever we moved next.
I mostly noticed minor linguistic differences (roof/hoof merger, pop, “come with”), which, to a child, seemed like I was among space aliens. I think the first exposure to small changes can seem significant. Because a couple moves later, El Paso, TX didn’t feel all that weird even though there were more obvious differences.
Weirdly the only place I know I’ve seen “no firearms” signs in NYC is outside AMC movie theaters.
When I moved to Boston, I heard some people calling themselves “bullshit,” and others said they were “shit-faced.” Having never heard anyone refer to themselves as shit, in any way, shape or form. I was confused.
I heard “shit-faced” on an almost daily basis during my high school years in northeastern Tennessee.
I experience it pretty regularly when I travel from our home in DC to our cabin in rural Virginia. At the height of the pandemic, people were walking around stores without masks just waiting for someone to call them out on it. When the vaccine came out, we got our shots there because you could just walk in and get it, while in DC there was a wait for shots. It reminds me of when I travel to the developing world for my work as an aid worker, but Virginia has more guns,
Of course there were changes. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer and lived in rural northern Thailand. Although I lived in the small provincial capital of 5000 people, it was hardly a bustling metropolis like Bangkok, which makes New York City look like Mayberry (although I did spend some time in Bangkok). But it felt no different than moving to a new apartment stateside.
Definitely. I was born in Mexico, but moved to the US when I was very young. I grew up in Arizona in a barrio in one of the large-ish (for Arizona) cities. When I was in my 20’s I got an offer to work in Washington DC, and moved with my family to Maryland. Talk about a culture shock! I had been to a big city (in California), and seen, you know, green plants…but it was really, really a shock to fly for the first time into the DC area. Not only was the countryside complete different (did you know you don’t have to water your lawn in Maryland? And you absolutely have to cut the grass ever week or so), but the people were different, thought differently, acted differently than what I was used to. I had to learn to wear a suit…every day…with a tie. Even when it was hot AND humid (which, again, was a shock…not the heat, but the damned humidity. Did you know that if you have a basement in Maryland you really need a DE-humidifier if you don’t want mold growing on your walls??). It was quite the culture shock for me.
Moving back to the south west was a culture shock for my wife and kids of course, but that’s a whole 'nother story…