I’ll give it a whirl at the rednecky, confederate places since I live here: Huntingtown MD, Prince Frederick MD, Charlotte Hall MD, Hollywood MD, Just about all of St. Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s County and even a little bit of Dunkirk, which is in Calvert.
Here’s a Maryland guy who pronounces “poor” as “pore”. (Read the notes to the clip.) That seems like a Southern marker to me. But maybe not.
I saw a clip of an old-time Maryland politician the other day (can’t remember who) and it surprised me how much of a Southern accent the guy had.
>I am in the corner where Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania come together and have been most of my life.
Hey, how close to that corner? I spent a few months in the 70’s living in a farmhouse about 500 feet from there, close to the end of Elbow Lane, and used to walk to Hoffman’s Haven every evening to drink one beer. Small world, eh?
Picky detail: the Mason Dixon Line is Maryland’s northern and eastern border. Don’t forget that Messrs. Dixon and Mason also surveyed the Delaware-Maryland border as a part of their commission.
Not really. The same site, different sub-link, shows Jim Crow laws everywhere except HI. They seem to start with the assumption that Maryland is part of the south, and so they lump it with the southern states wrt Jim Crow, rather than the other way around.
:eek: That line must prompt considerable sniggering whenever the anthem’s sung in public…
Presuming that they sing all 9 verses, and anybody’s still listening by that time.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone sing that song.
*She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!*
That might get a reaction if anyone is paying attention to the lyrics.
In 9 years of living in Maryland and 28 more years of visiting relatives and friends there, I have never heard the anthem sunng, either in public or in private. I have played the Rhode Island anthem on the kazoo during a circus, causing old people to stand up.
Just for Napier’s edification and sorry to hijack.
Hoffmans was torn down about 6 months ago and a swish new restaurant was put up ( the $100 for two type). The farmhouse right in the nexus was also torn down a few months ago, but that would have been 500 yards south of your house. And the states still argue over who has to repave that 50 yard stretch of 896. Pat Hoffman is still training dogs.
Now we take you back to your regularly scheduled programming.
X2, that’s what I came here to post.
They sing it every year at the Preakness, but that’s the only context in which I’ve heard it. And I’m pretty sure they leave out that verse, at least.
It’s not quite the Balto-Wash corridor, but Cecil County, in the far northeast corner of the state, and where I assume Mongo Ponton resides, is very Southern in feel. It’s not-so-jokingly refered to as Cecil-tucky. The KKK is still active there.
Sadly, I know far too many people who consider themselves Sourthern, and as such, have Confederate flag decals on their cars, have t-shirts with sayings like, “The South Will Rise Again!” and fly Confederate flags on their front porches.
Drive through rural Baltimore County, Harford County and Cecil County and you’ll see pickup trucks with Confederate flags flying from the truck bed.
I don’t know how things are now, but when I was in high school the KKK was certainly a presence in my county.
>The KKK is still active there.
Tell me more. I hardly ever hear anything specific and reliable about this, and haven’t seen any evidence since the cross burning in front of the courthouse years ago.
I can’t speak for the present climate, but as a teenager I received a business card with a picture of a KKK guy on a horse, printed with the message, “You have received a friendly visit from the Ku Klux Clan. Shall we pay you a real visit?” I don’t want to get into the details of the context, but it was clearly real and clearly intended as a threat.
A few years ago, a couple that i know moved into a house in Medfield, a historically white working-class neighborhood west of the Johns Hopkins main campus in Baltimore.
They were welcomed to the area by one of their neighbors, who informed them that it was a great neighborhood to live in because there were virtually no blacks, and who offered to put them in touch with the local Klan meeting.
It’s worth noting, however, that the presence of a Klan meeting is not necessarily an indication of Southern-ness. During the heyday of the Klan, in the period between 1915 and 1930, many of the organization’s most active chapters were in the north, and even today quite a few northern states have a small but committed core of Klan members.
Hell, the KKK is active in California. And once upon a time it used to pretty much run the state of Indiana. So I wouldn’t consider KKK activity a marker of “Southern-ness.”
I am not discounting anyone’s experience but I would like to suggest that if there is a is a GQ answer to the part of the Question is Maryland a Southern state today this it has to be a GQ “No” but with qualifiers: Like there are parts of the state with racial intolerance and that are “rednecky”
The GQ answer is that in 2007 Maryland is one of the most diverse(1), rich(2) (3) educated and blue (4) states in the United States and – as we seem to have defined ”Southern” as redneck, white and racially/culturally intolerant with a love of the Confederate Battle Flag – Maryland is almost certainly not that as a rule.
(1)
I suggest that in 2008 after Hawaii, Maryland is close to the most diverse state in the U.S. by some measures. It is not quite majority-minority,
But it is close and unlike those states that are Majority-Minority i.e. CA, TX, and NM – it is a State where Hispanics are not quite as a significant double-digit portion of the population – the diversity is coming from true diverse places. In fact, the Asian Population of Maryland grew faster than the Hispanic population 2000-2005
It is a State that is almost a quarter catholic and has a huge Jewish population … almost 5% of the state & with an African American population of almost 30% only 60% of the state is theoretically even eligible for the rampant Klan membership we are reading about here [& some portion of that 60% is Jewish and catholic and clearly liberal see below].
(2)
Maryland is the very unsouthern-like 4th wealthiest state by per capita Income
(3)
Colorado. That’s it.. That is the list of states with more people as a percentage of the population who are a “college graduate or more”.
(4)
Maryland is a very, very Blue state in National elections.
NY, RI, VT and MA. That is the complete list for states with a larger percentage of the population who voted for Kerry.
Again, this post not saying folks haven’t run into awful racism and faced cultural hurdles in the state or that in parts of Maryland this doesn’t still exist. But the idea that “MARYLAND” writ large is the basic equivalent of Birmingham 1958 is not truly SDMB-GQ worthy today. Really, Maryland it is a good example of the opposite of what this thread has defined ‘southern’ as.
Did we?