Sir,
May I use that as a sig?
Another post in support of DoctorJ’s assertion. Y’all is not singular. Ever.
In the Mid-South you are asked if you want sweetened or un-sweetened tea. The sweetened will put you into diabetic shock.
IMHO, tea seems to be made fresh in the South and made in the morning and used all day in the North.
My strangest cultural experience occured while courting the future Mrs. Plant. On a trip to New England, I stopped at the door of a grocery store to let two women enter first. I smiled. They made faces, turned and ran.
I’m from Louisville, which puts me in sort of an odd situation – everybody farther south thinks I’m a Yankee (and I do generally approach the topic of the Civil War as if “we” won, “we” being the Federals), but everybody farther north thinks I’m supposed to have a drawl and love Lynyrd Skynyrd and have a gun rack in my pickup truck and not wear shoes and stuff.
My Yankee-ness aside, “y’all” is a wonderful word.
A native Virginian here (Our traditional greeting for strangers: “Who were your mother’s people?”).
I was visiting friends in New Jersey (burned my shoes when I got back home, they had been contaminated with Yankee soil) one winter and we went to lunch. When asked what I would like to drink I told the waitress, “tea, please.” I think the my polite response fogged her brain because she brought me a cup of hot tea. I had to explain to her that I wanted a glass of ice tea (not “iced tea,” but ice tea - said as if one word). She must have fogged up again because she asked if she could bring me a glass with ice in it, and I could pour my tea into that. I felt very much like Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces.
Y’all is never singular. Never. Please don’t do this.
Anyway, y’all come on by the house sometime. I’ll make us some tea.
Unless I’m someplace that is actually in the south, I prefer to order Coke,rather than educate them on what Iced Tea is.
When Edlyn first moved here from Minnesota, she wasted a lot of time trying to order something called, let’s see, I think she called it “unsweetened iced tea”. Most of the time, she was ignored and was brought actual tea. One time, the waitress brought her the foul concoction she requested, with about twelve packs of artificial sweetener. Another time, she was brought a glass differently colored than all the rest that had normal tea. Eventually, Edlyn just gave up. Now she drinks regular tea, and actually makes some of the best around, aging it for a couple of days before serving. (Yankees might not know that “tastes like just-made tea” is not a compliment here.)
Just do the exact opposite of what applies in New Jersey or farther north.
Coca Cola is a pop in Ky, a soda in Pittsburgh
Gravy is breakfast food in Ky, served with roast in New Jersey. Don’t even think about asking for some sausage gravy for your home fries in Atlantic City.
Don’t even try to get grits farther north than Ohio.
Never put sugar on your grits in the south, as previously stated they ain’t cream of wheat.
Iced tea is sweet cold tea, that other stuff just ain’t right.
A true southern would ask for red eye gravy on the grits… Don’t ask me…? Just smile and say thank you…
I stay away from this board for 3 days and my favorite topic is discussed and I didn’t get my 2 cents in. POOP.
Here’s an easy rule of thumb for the Ya’ll thing
YOU can kiss my ass
YA’LL can kiss my ass
BTW it’s PEEcan, not piCAHN pie.
Go for it!
Of course “y’all” is never singular. However, I can see how Yankees and other non-Southerners might get the impression it is, for it is not uncommon to hear one individual say to another, “How’re y’all doin’ these days?”
This could conceivably create the impression that the term is similar. But the important nuance the Yankee is missing is that the questioner is not simply inquiring after the person he’s talking to. Because “y’all” is plural (and every Southerner knows it), the question is merely a simplified form of saying:
“How’re you and your Mom’n’em doin’ these days?”
Please make a note of this, as it will be on the test.
As for the list of acceptable ingredients when making grits, add garlic and (if, unlike me, you’re a meat-eater) crumbled-up bacon. A restaurant in Austin called Threadgill’s serves garlic cheese grits and it’s mm-mmm good.
Note: Texas is not the South, but they do follow some of our ways.
I’ve seen ham in grits…
You also have to add two more seasons to the calendar, Turkey Hunting and Deer Hunting.
As has been pointed out by several of you, y’all is plural: always has been, always will be. I think the singular myth was perpetuated by Hollywood. Oh, and we don’t care how you say it the Midwest or Kentucky. Those areas are not The South. In the Southern Appalachians (think hills and hillbillies), you’uns is also perfectly acceptable. The higher the elevation, the more you hear it.
Grits may be blessed with salt&pepper, Tabasco sauce, runny egg yolks, and/or chopped country sausage. Never milk or sugar!
other tips:
Mama is sacred.
So is football.
Fried catfish is superior to sushi, lobster, smoked salmon, or any other fancy-shmantsy seafood.
Flurries are considered “snow” and stores will be out of milk and bread within an hour.
Greens don’t just come from turnips. Mustard greens and collards are respectable, too. Be sure to eat them with cornbread and black-eyed peas (or field peas or crowder peas).
We hold doors open: for both women and men. Mama raised us right.
Peace,
TN*hippie
Oh, sure. All this great advice after I return from Mississippi.
As for grits in Ohio, forget it. Nobody up here has a clue on making them properly. Bleah.
When I was working in a restaurant once in St. Louis years ago, one of the waitresses waited on a table of Southerners. One of them asked for iced tea, but pronounced it as ost-tee. The waitress just about died of embarrasment when she showed up at the table with a glass of Asti Spumante and found out what he really ordered.
Not to run this grits thing into the ground…
Please forgive my ignorance, but WHY Never milk or sugar!???
Is it a regional thing, like barbeque sauce recipies [got dragged into a loud but tasty neighborhood argument on that one]? Does milk or sugar destroy the taste (like putting onions in chocolate chip cookies)?? Or is it just something you JUST DON’T DO (I was going to say something like not insulting someone’s black velvet painting of Elvis, but thought better of it. BTW, does anyone really own a black velvet painting of Elvis - I’ve seen them at flea markets, but never in someone’s home)??
I just wanna know. I tried them, and maybe mixed-with-something grits would taste better than plain grits. I just don’t want to look like an ignoramus (like using the wrong salad fork).
Some years back, my husband and a coworker stopped at a roadside display of velvet paintings, thinking a velvet of Elvis would look mighty fine on the wall with the founding father of their company. The vendor was highly insulted and couldn’t understand why someone would want to joke about velvet Elvis paintings. He claimed he didn’t have any available anyway - perhaps he didn’t want to sell to the unappreciative…
screech-owl
You got close with the onions-in-cookies analogy. You wouldn’t put onions in cookies because cookies are a sweet food, a dessert-y food, so putting onions in them would be bad.
To bring it back to breakfast foods, you wouldn’t put onions on pancakes or bake them into a Danish, either.
Well, likewise, grits are not to be eaten sweet, so just keep that sugar bowl at the other end of the table, thank you. Would you pour syrup over your fried chicken? No, of course not! It’s the same with grits.
Five:
Thank you for clearing that up. Maybe I’ll stop at Waffle House in the morning and make another attempt at grits.
Sigh. Now if only I could find decent Buffalo Wings in the south. (Best ones I found were in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, but that’s a whole 'nuther thread.)
Wow! Dad’s Garage! I’ve gotta get there sometime! 