I’ve just returned from a trip to Florida to visit my parents and I noticed something during the trip. In Southern States, if you order iced tea, you are asked if you want sweetened or unsweetened. Or you might just be given sweetened tea. But not in Florida!
I’ve been asked in Tennesee, Georgia, Kentucky, as well as other nominally Southern States.
Does this mean that Florida is not a Southern State?
Florida does have a lot of transplants from norther climes, so perhaps that’s the difference.
Southern Florida is not a southern state. Northern Florida most definitely is.
Up here in the NC mountains, we get hordes of tourists from Florida. I work at a local museum, so a bunch of these Floridians come my way. However, I’ve never met one native Floridian. Most of the folks I’ve talked to were born in Northern states, then relocated or retired to Florida. They definitely don’t have Southern accents, and not one of them has ever called me “sugar,” 
, so, based on my limited experience, I’d say that while Florida is geographically Southern, it’s not as culturally Southern as you might expect.
I’ve lived in and around Tupelo, MS for 28 years and have never had any of the born and raised southerners call me “Sugar”. 
[sup]not even my wife.[/sup]
It is said that south of Orlando, Florida is more a part of the Caribbean than one of the states. Miami is the main city of the Caribbean, if not its capital.
burundi, I was just in those N.C. mountains yesterday. Cold as a witch’s tit – except for the hospitality. Beautiful country! [/hijack]
kniz, my parents called each other “sug” – short for sugar. And a roommate called her boyfriend the same. Sometimes I use it with my husband without even thinking.
My husband and I have talked about Florida’s lack of “Southerness.” Yet they were a Confederate state.
I guess the real test is: Do they eat grits? If so, how do they eat them?
I once had a serving of grits in Sanford, Florida. I put sugar and butter on them. An elderly gentleman approached me and said, “I see you are a real Southerner.”
My point is that the term is not used universally in the south. From back when I lived in Georgia, I remember it being more common there. People in Charleston like shrimp with their grits and the only way most[sup]*[/sup] northerners like their grits is still in the box. Don’t ever say because someone doesn’t do “X” that he/she isn’t southern. It’s a yankee perception that we all are alike.
[sup] * note I said “most”, wouldn’t want to lump them all together.[/sup]
Correction. Miami is the Capitol of Latin America, no longer just the Caribbean. And I would need to drive at least four hours north of here to be in the South.
What Neurotik and UncleBill said. North Florida is southern; south Florida is northern.
I’d love to dig up some numbers on what percentage of Floridians were actually born there. I was, and so were both my parents. That’s got to be pretty rare.
I was born in Miami, as indeed was my grandfather. I left it to the yankees a long time ago.
South Florida has never, in my memory, been “Southern”. I remember this discussion from ninth grade:
New guy to me: “Where are you from?”
Me: “Right here, Miami.”
New guy: No, I mean where are you from. Like, where were you born?"
Me: “Right here, Miami. My Grandad and Mom were born here too.”
New guy: “You’re crazy. Nobody’s from Miami.”
And so it went. The vast majority of South Florida’s population came from elsewhere.
Now Miami is, indeed, “The Capitol of Latin America”.
Ah, the South. Waitress appears (handkerchief pinned to her shoulder) with a pitcher in each hand. “Hah sugah. Sweetened or Unnnnnn?”
IMO offering sweetened iced tea is one of the little graces that makes the South truly civilized. It’s impossible to dissolve sugar in cold iced tea; eliminating the problem is considered a duty of hospitality.
I was on a bus trip from Jacksonville, FL to Charleston, SC when the bus broke down. All college students from all over. We walked to a diner, and everyone ordered cokes. I ordered sweet tea. The waitress came by to give me refills, and not them, and they swore she was hitting on me. They had not been in the South before, and didn’t know how things worked. I grew up in South Carolina, and when people ask me today if I would like another iced tea, I say, no thank you, but I would like more iced tea.
Not South.
I lived in West Palm Beach for a short time. I say this is not at all like a southern city. I was about 27 when I lived there. I remember being totally shocked when senior citizens were rude to me in the grocery store.
Sounds like Southern Fla is North then?
I hadn’t heard Miami referred to as the capital of Latin America before. I guess that’s because of all the immigrents.
I don’t have much experience with Northern Fla as that’s drive through country for me. I’d really like to spend some time there, but I can’t tell my folks we are leaving early because we want to visit the springs and all that stuff on the way home. Just wouldn’t fly. Guess I’m still their little boy, at the age of 56 yet!
South of the Bee Line,there’s still some pockets of the south.at least there were when I was last there (abt.15 yrs.) Around Okeechobee,is a state route (27?) that had towns like Sebring,and the old Tamiami Trail (starts from Calle Ocho-SW 8th in the old days) drive used to reveal some of the old Southerners.
Also drove through Belle Glade (cane cutters) one night,that was a real cultural/time warp shock.