Dumfries is in Prince William, and on the southern edge, for that matter. As for Fredericksburg,
Did your friend move there from somewhere else & have no desire to eat the things you listed?
The only convincing argument I can think of re NOVA’s classification would be the fact that a bunch of people from the north have moved in and now dominate the population. Urban and liberal have absolutely nothing to do with what is or isn’t Southern. That’s just plain old fashioned ignorance.
Some people actually take those simplistic Red State/Blue State maps seriously. It sounds as though Northern Virginia doesn’t match the US stereotype of “Southern.” Good for NoVa! But “Southern” was a geographic descriptor before it acquired that baggage. So it’s part of the South.
And *LOTR *is not an allegory! Obviously, an author’s work can be influenced or affected by many “real world” events. But that’s not allegory–which is created very deliberately. And is usually agonizing to read. I can understand that some people find LOTR tough sledding. Let them try *Pilgrim’s Progress *or The Faerie Queen…
He’s lived there his entire life, as far as I know.
I think that’s pretty much what happened, although it’s more “people not from the south” than “people from the north”.
60% of the native-born population of Northern Virginia is from the South. I bet that number gets distinctly smaller when you take into account all of the immigrants.
Look, there’s a J E B Stuart high school and a Robert E. Lee high school in Fairfax County. If you google, for example, Alexandria, VA “soul food”, you get a fairly massive list. You may not think it’s in the south, but there is certainly plenty of evidence that it is, in fact, southern.
Historically, yes, which I’ve acknowledged multiple times. These days, not really.
So? The same thing happens if you google Seattle or Bangor. You’re not going to argue that those cities are in the South, are you?
Sorry but you lose on this one. It seems like you’re trying really hard to distance yourself from the “south” as you perceive it, along with its reputation and associations. But who cares, really?
You’re the one claiming sweet tea is unheard of in the area and no one there eats grits.
Either way it seems pretty obvious that your roommate is not way out in left field on this.
That is quite possibly the single most ignorant thing I have read today. Eating grits is what defines Southern? Seriously?
My father, who was – by every account of every person that ever met him – a Southern gentleman. Born in rural (and I do mean rural – literally he was born in a tobacco field, the doctor didn’t show for 3 days after his birth) TN in 1936, started smoking at age 3 to cure his polio (worked, by the by, you’d never know he’d had polio if not for the story), hated “niggers” but didn’t mind “blacks” and pretty much loathed “Northerners” – and yet, when we went to a Waffle House for lunch one day looked at his plate and said “what on Earth is that?” while pointing to the grits. Not every Southerner eats grits and some have never seen them.
On the other hand, my daughter was introduced to the “joy” of grits and shrimp for breakfast by her paternal grandfather last year – he was born and grew up in Montana (a far cry from the South) and now lives in California.
Just sayin’
This is what I’m getting. Either way, the OP is about “weird” things you can’t imagine people knowing / not knowing and since no one here except Captain Carrot considers Northern Virginia to be part of The North, I don’t see this as a great example.
And do note that I am not the one who brought it up, so kindly don’t point that finger at me!
I never watched Little House nor did I read the books. I think Best Little Whorehouse On The Prairie was for rent at the adult store.
In a previous thread on South/not South, one dear Florida lady linked to a map of Florida (Florida!) with lines drawn to show what was not the South. A big stripe across the middle was marked “Crackers, not the South.” It was clear to me she wasn’t using a compass.
Here in Central Indiana, we’re surely not the South. However, we have Waffle Houses. I had an omelet at Eva’s, a local place, last week. I was asked “Grits or hash browns?” At the Omni, grits are a specialty.
Some places in town specifically have sweet tea on the menu.
Some social indicators aren’t so reliable, I reckon.
I am guessing that you and your family have not spent much time in the actual North.
I attended college in Virginia (the not-northern part), and had a friend from Texas who held that Virginia wasn’t the South at all, nor was North Carolina. Nothing above South Carolina counted as “the South” to her. But she’d never been north of the D.C. area in her life, so her perspective was rather skewed.
I grew up in various parts of the South and then lived for several years in a part of the country that is only “south” relative to Canada, and from that perspective the D.C. area and NoVa region seem pretty darn Southern. Less culturally Southern than other parts of VA, but you’re not going to mistake it for New York, Illinois, or California.
Actually, my parents lived in Connecticut, California, and France.
Unfortunately, I think experiences like enipla’s are common (being familiar with the TV series, but not the books). I was on a tour of DeSmet, SD once, and I was the only person on the tour who knew that Mary was never married or ran a blind school, that they never had adopted brothers, and other stuff made up for the series. It kind of depressed me, to tell you the truth.
While the evidence is pretty good that Lord of the Rings is not an allegory, I wouldn’t take Tolkien’s word on it. He’s also the one who claimed that “Leaf by Niggle” wasn’t an allegory either, but a fairy tale, despite having exactly none of the elements of a fairy tale that he had just finished defining in an essay.
I would also point out that the mere presence of sweet tea cannot be used as a defining element of the South, since McDonald’s now sells sweet tea. Now, granted, McDonald’s sweet tea is absolutely terrible, so one might perhaps be able to define the South in terms of good sweet tea.
Well that’s true, but only because we went down and blew up all their shit last time they tried. If we hadn’t, there would in fact be a government of the south with officials representing the south and NoVa would be part of it.
Sherlocke Holmes was no doubt like that in the earlier stories, but I think he had a change of heart later on.