# I pit southern girls

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [June 4, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062 "2012-06-04T18:35:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/121 "2012-06-06T14:28:02Z")

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> [@Southern\_Yankee](#):
>
> Agreed. I hear “Yankee this,” and “Yankee that” on occasion, but usually it’s tongue-in-cheek. I will say that senses of humor are definitely different. Sarcasm is lost on these people… 😃

What is their sense of humor like, aside from not being sarcasm-based?

Or was that sarcasm?

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**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/122 "2012-06-06T15:35:05Z")

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> [@Southern\_Yankee](#):
>
> Agreed. I hear “Yankee this,” and “Yankee that” on occasion, but usually it’s tongue-in-cheek. I will say that senses of humor are definitely different. Sarcasm is lost on these people… 😃

Might I say too your username is hilariously apropos for this conversation

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**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/123 "2012-06-06T16:50:24Z")

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> [@MichaelEmouse](#):
>
> What is their sense of humor like, aside from not being sarcasm-based?
> 
> Or was that sarcasm?

You’ve seen _Hee Haw_?

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/124 "2012-06-06T17:55:56Z")

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> [@Southern\_Yankee](#):
>
> Agreed. I hear “Yankee this,” and “Yankee that” on occasion, but usually it’s tongue-in-cheek. I will say that senses of humor are definitely different. Sarcasm is lost on these people… 😃

[QUOTE=Southern Yankee]  
You’ve seen Hee Haw?  
[/QUOTE]

It’s lost on many _white_ southerners- the _Hee Haw_ crowd in particular.

Like most of my family I have a sarcastic sense of humor and when I was a kid it would work in my family (except for the really old ones) but often fell flat because of people thinking I was serious. When I went from the upscale all-white school I attended for elementary (we weren’t well off but my mother taught there and got a major tuition break) after I [del]flunked out[/del] _decided I wanted a more diverse and socially reflective education_ I was amazed at how the same jokes that flew completely over the heads of (not all, but most) white students and white teachers absolutely killed with (not all, but most) of the black students and teachers.

Of course it’s not surprising when you think of it. This was in 1979 and Jim Crow wasn’t _that_ far removed (all but the right-out-of-college youngest black teachers I had grew up under it) and black culture, for obvious reasons, had a long history of having to say “Oh isn’t that wonderfu, Miss Caroline? I just absolutely love stories about your gardening club!” while thinking “I don’t care if your next ‘prize winning’ tomato chokes your ugly ass grandkids, pay me the $10 you owe me for last week so I can go home already!”- it was a diglossic and often duplicitous culture for survival, and sarcasm is of course a duplicitous/coded/angry form of humor.

And I had a lot of ancestors who were either poor relations or had the bitterness borne of being very-intelligent-but-broke. They probably developed it for the same reason.

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**Author:** ![Nocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9fc348/32.png) [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/125 "2012-06-07T01:48:02Z")

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> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#):
>
> **Sampiro** , I grew up in an all-white town of about 600 people in Blount County, so I feel your pain. 😉  
> I’ve lived in Tuscaloosa for over 20 years now. As far as it being unfriendly, it depends on where you go and who you hang out with. Tuscaloosa is very conservative for a college town. Campus politics, etc. are completely controlled by the rich white kids (fraternities and sororities).  
> If you ever get back to Tuscaloosa drop by Egan’s Bar, it’s the friendliest, most laid back place in town and if I’m there I’ll buy you a drink. (Ask for The Ringer). 😉

Oh man, you go to Egan’s? Do you go there often? I used to hang out there all the time, I just no longer smoke and barely drink. I hopefully will be playing gigs there with my band soon.

It’s so weird to run into someone I probably know on a message board…

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**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/126 "2012-06-07T14:39:15Z")

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> [@Nocturne](#):
>
> Oh man, you go to Egan’s? Do you go there often? I used to hang out there all the time, I just no longer smoke and barely drink. I hopefully will be playing gigs there with my band soon.
> 
> It’s so weird to run into someone I probably know on a message board…

Yeah, it’s pretty much the only place in town we go, besides the Downtown Pub for trivia on Sunday nights. What’s the name of your band?

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**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/127 "2012-06-07T18:52:23Z")

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> [@wmulax93](#):
>
> They’ve been raised to still be pissed that we won.

Just call them losers. 😃

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**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/128 "2012-06-08T00:28:59Z")

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> [@BlinkingDuck](#):
>
> Just call them losers. 😃

I would just like to clarify that, while I AM a Southerner, I did NOT lose war. My ancestors didn’t EITHER.

My whole area, Western NC, seriously considered starting a new state with East Tennessee instead of seceding with the rest of the South. We contributed very few soldiers, participated resentfully, and generally wanted nothing to do with a war over slavery. Why? Because slavery was based on agriculture, and it’s too mountainous, remote, and cold to grow enough crops to need slaves to work the fields in this area.

The heck with the Confederacy. The heck with the Union too. People SHOULD have a found a non-violent way to work it out, that didn’t involve tearing the country apart and killing hundreds of thousands of people. My salt-of-the-earth mountain people ancestors had no desire to participate, they had no dog in the fight, and wanted to be left alone. We still do.

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**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/129 "2012-06-08T02:59:14Z")

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Plannin on going out alone again tomorrow, we will have to see what happens

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**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/130 "2012-06-08T03:20:41Z")

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> [@Time\_Stranger](#):
>
> We might be jerks, but we can make some mean biscuits.
> 
> You’d be grumpy too if you lived in a place where it was 100+ degrees five months out of the year.

Are you talking about me? (123 degrees at eight this morning.)

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/131 "2012-06-08T07:25:52Z")

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> [@al27052](#):
>
> I would just like to clarify that, while I AM a Southerner, I did NOT lose war. My ancestors didn’t EITHER.

My ancestors did fight for the Confederacy. Every one of them who fought in the war did so on the side of the CSA, and in fact one of them, when Johnston surrendered, refused to be paroled but rode with General Joseph Wheeler and a few hundred other volunteers to guard Jefferson Davis and continue fighting as guerillas. I’ve studied their regimental and individual histories in great detail, I find some of the campaigns in which they served and some of their particular backgrounds and choices absolutely fascinating, but I feel neither pride nor shame over them any more than I do over the actions of whatever social climbing lemur became my 4,000,000th great-grandfather or any more than I take over the actions of my gilled 58th century descendants. I’m neither responsible for, subject to consequences for or entitled to rewards the actions of people who died generations before I was born, though I do quite enjoy reading about them because there was nothing even remotely simple about the times in which they lived or the exact reasons that led to any segment of that war.

Frankly, if my ancestors had personally owned and operated Andersonville and put in a “See the Prisoners Sewage Flume” ride to capitalize on it I doubt it would make me hang my head in shame- they’re not me. I do have disdain, though, for those who seem to think that the acts of ones ancestors 150 years ago would make people “losers”. As humor its banal, as subtext you’re saying that not only do you have no accomplishments of your own but you have to go back 150 years just to find something to be proud about in your family (though very few people have any freaking clue what their ancestors did in the Civil War), and beyond all that such abandonment of logic, and malignant stereotyping of a people would make them people ideal candidates for the Aryan Nations if they had the guts to be as openly racist/openly xenophobic/openly homophobic/openly other-demographic as they are openly regionalist. Show contempt for the government of my state and I’ll probably join you, show contempt for the aggressively ignorant and I will definitely join you [but I’ll also point out we don’t now nor have we ever held a monopoly on that quality], but diss my entire state and you diss most of my friends and all of my family and that is where we have a problem, one whose preferred outcome I am I believe prevented from fully describing even as a hypothetical on facebook.

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**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/132 "2012-06-08T16:17:16Z")

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> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> one whose preferred outcome I am I believe prevented from fully describing even as a hypothetical on facebook.

Facebook 😕 Where do you think you are? 😉

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/133 "2012-06-08T17:16:27Z")

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> [@Kimballkid](#):
>
> Facebook 😕 Where do you think you are? 😉

Which one was founded by Jesse Eisenberg and the guy who lives in a Chicago barn?

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**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/134 "2012-06-08T18:53:40Z")

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Mrs O’Leary’s cow?

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**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/135 "2012-06-08T19:13:56Z")

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She’s plump, maybe. But not a cow.

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**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/136 "2012-06-09T04:20:07Z")

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From an episode of “Hollywood Squares”:

> [@](#):
>
> _Peter Marshall:_ Paul, the state flag of Alabama is all white with one very distinctive feature. What is it?  
> _Paul Lynde:_ Eye holes!

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**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/137 "2012-06-09T15:00:55Z")

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Oh, frig, that’s funny.

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**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/138 "2012-06-09T15:51:27Z")

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> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> but diss my entire state and you diss most of my friends and all of my family and that is where we have a problem, one whose preferred outcome I am I believe prevented from fully describing even as a hypothetical on facebook.

Is anyone else thinking of those T-shirts that say “You mess with me, you’re messin’ with the whole trailer park” ?

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**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/139 "2012-06-09T19:31:04Z")

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> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Is anyone else thinking of those T-shirts that say “You mess with me, you’re messin’ with the whole trailer park” ?

No.

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**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-southern-girls/624062/140 "2012-06-09T22:49:52Z")

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Thought he was going to give it another try last night. Wonder what the update is?

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