# My roommate knows (and doesn't know) the weirdest things **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 6, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496 "2009-05-06T01:42:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/121 "2009-05-07T14:57:22Z")
I think that arguing with the OP about whether or not Northern Virginia is part of the North or part of the South is kind of irrelevant to his point in the OP. His point was that it was a bit _bizarre_ that his roommate believes that Northern Virginia is part of the South. This seems unreasonable to me…Northern Virginia is a particular region of a Southern state. Ergo, it makes perfect sense to believe that it’s part of the South, even if the residents of that region aren’t feelin’ it. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/122 "2009-05-07T15:07:59Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > I think that arguing with the OP about whether or not Northern Virginia is part of the North or part of the South is kind of irrelevant to his point in the OP. His point was that it was a bit _bizarre_ that his roommate believes that Northern Virginia is part of the South. This seems unreasonable to me…Northern Virginia is a particular region of a Southern state. Ergo, it makes perfect sense to believe that it’s part of the South, even if the residents of that region aren’t feelin’ it. No, my point was that even after I told him repeatedly that it wasn’t, he continued to insist that it was. Even though he’s never been there and I lived there for 19 years. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/123 "2009-05-07T15:08:50Z")
Well, so what? Based on the responses in this thread, he’s probably right. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/124 "2009-05-07T15:10:52Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > No, my point was that even after I told him repeatedly that it wasn’t, he continued to insist that it was. Even though he’s never been there and I lived there for 19 years. I think he’s using different criteria to define it, which isn’t all that bizarre, either. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/125 "2009-05-07T15:12:00Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I’m trying to imagine how this thread would go if someone were claiming that a certain part of Vermont wasn’t really New England. If someone who lived in Burlington for a long time told me that it was culturally more a suburb of New York, I would concede to their primary experience. It’s not as if it’s totally unknown for places on the borders of a region to have more in common with the neighboring areas, especially if the region was formed a long time ago and there have been subsequent developments that served to separate them. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/126 "2009-05-07T15:15:15Z")
Oh, fuck it. Fine. Arlington and its surrounding cities and counties might as well be in Alabama, apparently, despite the experiences of many people who have lived there for decades. Can we end this ridiculous hijack, please? ---
**Author:** ![busterbloodvessel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@busterbloodvessel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/busterbloodvessel)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/127 "2009-05-07T15:18:44Z")
My roommate and I were watching some old Godzilla movie on DVD. After the first couple of lines of subtitled dialogue, he turned to me with this confused look on his face… He didn’t know Godzilla movies were Japanese. Come on, man!! ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/128 "2009-05-07T15:47:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > At Christmas, I spent time with my brother, sisters, brother-in-law, and parents, all of whom have more or less spent at least the last twenty years in Northern Virginia, and I told them “My roommate claims that Northern Virginia is not part of the South.” (I misspoke, obviously) Every single one of them exclaimed “It’s not!” Well, they arrived at about the time I left Maryland. So maybe they aren’t aware of or interested in the history of their adopted home, which, while common, I always find to be more than a little sad. I suggest that because there has been an enormous spurt of growth and necomers in the at period, the underlying history (and lots of the original people) are still there. While I was in Baltimore, my sister went to school at Georgetown, and then lived for a while in Arlington in a cement district near the Metro IIRC. Even there felt more southern to me, even if I got on the metro from my work in Silver Spring (OK I think that statin opened after I left work there, but drove there). And to answer someone else’s question, yes, in many ways, DC exists culturally further on the southerns/northern spectrum then you might think. There are people there from around the country and the world. They bring their traditions with them. Many of them come in with each administration and end up staying. Since 1976 we have had many Presidents from the South in case you hadn’t noticed, Reagan and Obama (for a few months only!) being the exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/129 "2009-05-07T15:50:47Z")
> [@BiblioCat](#): > > Go to some of the rural areas in Maryland (the eastern shore, the northeast counties, far western MD), and you’d swear you were in Kentucky. Even some of the blue-blood neighborhoods of Baltimore City are essentially southern-genteel: Ruxton, Guilford, and to some extent Roland Park, for example. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/130 "2009-05-07T15:56:52Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Historically, yes, which I’ve acknowledged multiple times. These days, not really. Did it move? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/131 "2009-05-07T15:59:12Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > So maybe they aren’t aware of or interested in the history of their adopted home, which, while common, I always find to be more than a little sad. And there’s more than a little condescension here. I don’t think anyone is denying history. It’s a simple statement of perception that standing here right now, it doesn’t feel like I’m in “the South.” And that feelings is exactly as legitimate as the feeling you have in a cement district near a metro station that you are in the South. We’re perhaps getting nearer a critical balancing point at which the former will surpass the latter. Perhaps there’s more than a little panic at the idea that a place that was once unquestionably Southern in character might not be so forever. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/132 "2009-05-07T15:59:36Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Did it move? The people and demographics did. History is not the sole arbiter of the character of a region. DC was once a backwater swamp, but now it’s the center of government. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/133 "2009-05-07T16:03:18Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > And so what? Shit changes. I’ve lived in Northern Virginia for nearly 15 years now. I eat grits and I’ve eaten at the Waffle House and at Krispy Kreme, but I did all those things when I lived in Ohio. I don’t feel like I’m in the South, and the people I know and associate with don’t feel like they’re in the South either. By this standard, Chinatown in NY is not in NYC, it is not even in North America. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/134 "2009-05-07T16:06:52Z")
We’re talking about the possibility of border of a cultural region maybe moving a hundred miles or so over the course of a century. Do you really think that’s analogous to saying that a couple blocks of Manhattan are “not in North America”? There was a time when Virginia claimed a swath of territory that reaches into modern Wisconsin and Minnesota. People in Duluth-Superior today probably have no feeling of a cultural connection to Virginia. There was a time when London was a Roman provincial capital inhabited primarily by Romanized Celts. We’re talking about the possibility of a much, much smaller change here and some posters are acting as if someone’s trying to stab their grandmothers. I’m from Ohio. There are several places where I grew up that feel a lot more southern to me than Arlington, Virginia. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/135 "2009-05-07T16:08:38Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > **Ro0sh** , I’ve found that Northern Kentucky has some of the same issues…people from there will make a point of saying they are from NORTHERN Kentucky, lest you think they might be a hillbilly or something. What’s weirder, though, are the people I’ve met who insist that if you are from very north in Kentucky, right by the Ohio River, then you can’t say that you are “from Cincinnati,” even though you live 10 minutes from downtown Cincy, and your town is actually a suburb. Apparently, Northern Kentucky is a very touchy issue for some people! I had that happen to me once on a business trip to Dayton Ohio. At the hotel bar were some locals from “Northern Kentucky”. Let’s just say they were less then convincing that they were in anyway different from what people would expect of Kentuckians (you said hillbilly, not me) :). ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/136 "2009-05-07T16:13:57Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > That’s no longer official as of approximately a century and a half ago. > > Actually, because it is. Everything that is identified with Southernness has to to with cultural perceptions. To you maybe, because you are willing to forget history once it reaches an arbitrary “expires by” date. It is not like the Civil Ware exploded out of nowhere, imposing itself on VA, or the interests of VA in the creation of the US, and the negotiation of the Constitution were not aligned with the South or anything…:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/137 "2009-05-07T16:18:36Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > If someone who lived in Burlington for a long time told me that it was culturally more a suburb of New York, I would concede to their primary experience. It’s not as if it’s totally unknown for places on the borders of a region to have more in common with the neighboring areas, especially if the region was formed a long time ago and there have been subsequent developments that served to separate them. Burlington is a suburb of New York? I know the population demographics in NoVa are different than when I lived nearby, but I thought the school systems were excellent overall. Don’t they teach map reading skills? Maybe that is what is at the heart of this debate - the population is deluded because they are not good at reading and interpreting maps or teaching same to the kids? ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/138 "2009-05-07T16:28:21Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > And there’s more than a little condescension here. I don’t think anyone is denying history. It’s a simple statement of perception that standing here right now, it doesn’t feel like I’m in “the South.” And that feelings is exactly as legitimate as the feeling you have in a cement district near a metro station that you are in the South. We’re perhaps getting nearer a critical balancing point at which the former will surpass the latter. Perhaps there’s more than a little panic at the idea that a place that was once unquestionably Southern in character might not be so forever. It wasn’t condescending, it was sincere. We are a mobile people in a mobile world. I do feel sad when people move and don’t learn about where they are. I live in rural California now, and in many ways this place could be in the rural South. Except for me and 10 other people perhaps, the only difference might be the time zone and the view of the Sierras to the east. It is a new world to me, of course I am trying to learn about it. I am not sure what you mean by “not so forever”. When I first drove cross country from Baltimore to California, NoVa was the first place I passed through (and I have not been back since). What I learned on the rest of that trip is that places are more than the sum of the people and buildings and the here and now - they also are made up of the ghosts of the past. When I was jut out of college, I interviewed for a job in Reston. It was waaaay out in the sticks at the time, now I suppose it is a middle suburb centered in endless sprawl. So maybe the battlegrounds are paved over, but they are still there. People who are finely attuned to the difference in suburban sprawl from one region to another can tell the difference even if not everyone can or will. Trust me, NoVa is fine on its own, but it will never be and can never be Rockville or Bethesda or Montgomery County just over the river. Even if everything superficial is the same, the ghosts of history are still there. ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/139 "2009-05-07T16:28:31Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Perhaps there’s more than a little panic at the idea that a place that was once unquestionably Southern in character might not be so forever. Seems to me that if there’s any “panic”, it’s more from people who are scared to death that they’ll be associated with anything “Southern.” Since, you know, our school systems suck, our businesses all just got the 'lectric last year, we’re all lazy good-for-nothins, and we still use the one-drop rule to determine everbody’s ancestry. Cite from earlier in the thread, by **TruCelt** : “Northern Virginia is not the South in that our school system is excellent, our businesses high-tech, our work ethic quite strong, and our society largely color blind.” ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496/140 "2009-05-07T16:31:20Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Burlington is a suburb of New York? I was speaking _hypothetically_. Also note that I said New York, not New York City, and Burlington, VT, is right on the border between New York and Vermont. > [@not\_alice](#): > > It is not like the Civil War exploded out of nowhere, imposing itself on VA, or the interests of VA in the creation of the US, and the negotiation of the Constitution were not aligned with the South or anything… And guess what: that really doesn’t have much to do with Northern Virginia nowadays. See, sometimes, the recent history of a metropolitan area can affect its current character much more than what happened there over a century ago. I know it’s hard to believe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-roommate-knows-and-doesnt-know-the-weirdest-things/495496.md?page=8)