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The American South
Georgia
Alabama
Mississippi
South Carolina
Louisiana
North Carolina
Tennessee
Arkansas (including extreme southern Missouri)
Kentucky (minus Cincinnati suburbs, including Missouri bootheel)
North Florida (everything north of Orlando)
South Virginia (from just north of Richmond southward, including Charlottesville, most of the Shenandoah Valley, and parts of southeastern West Virginia)
This thread may close now.
LOL Sorry, Arias...you're a good man...but it when only close on this topic under your terms when you scan state better reasons than "I said so"!
Ok, so I grew up in southwest Virginia (Bristol) and I never considered va anything but southern or southern appalachian. However I've recently started looking around on these city data posts and apparently there are 900 definitions of the south or what states are included in the south......so what states to y'all are in the south?
Interesting question, of course, but there are only (hmmmmm) possibly 14 million other threads over just the last three years, related to this subject. LOL And it always leads to nothing but strong opinions (and trolls) on a subject that has forever been the subject of debate (since about 1960 or so, at least) and always will be. If it weren't? Then the subject would not pop up like popcorn...
And I agree is IS an interesting subject! The problem usually comes in when people who -- when it comes right down to it -- know nothing about Southern history/culture...and it start fights by posting facts they cannot back up at all...
But anyway, IHMO, (and that is all it is) "the South" can be defined (along with a hundred other definitions!) generally speaking -- as those states where a majority of residents (according to the most extensive surveys ever done...and over 7 years) reflected where they not only considered themselves to live in the South, but thought of themselves as Southerners. These were the 11 Old Confederate States, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. West Virginia was on the borderline.
This survey (conducted at the University of North Carolina as part of the Southern Focus Poll) is available on line. But naturally, there are going to be some who will disagree with it. Just as there are going to be some (many, in fact, as it is! LOL) who disagree with those "Deep South Purists" who not only define the South as limited to just a few states...but actually believe that the fact they are from a generally acknowledged "Deep South" state, gives them the default credentials to do so.
Hell...I actually laugh a bit about it. I know a few people (some are even distant kin), who really think the fact they are from (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, whatever) gives them the automatic sheepskin to "define the South."
Sorry...birthplace alone are not Southern history/heritage credentials!
Interesting question, of course, but there are only (hmmmmm) possibly 14 million other threads over just the last three years, related to this subject. LOL And it always leads to nothing but strong opinions (and trolls) on a subject that has forever been the subject of debate (since about 1960 or so, at least) and always will be. If it weren't? Then the subject would not pop up like popcorn...
I don't know how popular the topic is in the real world...but in cyber world people just love to to argue about who ISN'T southern. I don't really think it's all that important to most people in real life.
You either love it or you hate it. It's served on cafeteria trays with a thin, almost crackery crust, cut into squares with really thick pepperoni and piled toppings, and the sauce is sweet. My dad despises the stuff but I love it and Ledos restaurants are always full.
I know. I love Ledos. I grew up in Prince George's County just a half block down from a Ledos pizza restaurant. :-)
Interesting question, of course, but there are only (hmmmmm) possibly 14 million other threads over just the last three years, related to this subject. LOL And it always leads to nothing but strong opinions (and trolls) on a subject that has forever been the subject of debate (since about 1960 or so, at least) and always will be.
Now that's an interesting question: Where was the south in 1960?
=BigCityDreamer;25744199]Now that's an interesting question: Where was the south in 1960?[/
Where it always has been, really. But it was around that time that --- culminating in the 60's and early 70's that, that some politicians and business people in many Southern states, began to try and distance themselves from the past. Lyndon Johnson latter admitted it; that during his campaign, he told his staff to downplay Texas' Southern heritage, and seize upon the "West" motif. But, in his later memoirs, he was very honest about it, and frankly stating that Texas was part of the South in all the essential way. Other Southern politicans had the same problem, if such terms can be used.
Along with what was mentioned above in surveys, the South can also be defined in 1960 or so as what was still the "Solid South". And, on a related tangent, the same states that made the switch to what is now the same solid South, but just generally voting patterns that went to a different party...
I don't know how popular the topic is in the real world...but in cyber world people just love to to argue about who ISN'T southern. I don't really think it's all that important to most people in real life.
If you actually bring up this topic in RL in MD it invariably doesn't last long because the internet-induced passion simply doesn't exist. I remember recently being with a bunch of other folks, and someone from Baltimore said he was a southerner. I know that not everyone I was with, me included, would think of Baltimore as southern, but they and I had no problem with him saying that. I've heard someone say "believe me, i'm from Pennsylvania and Maryland is DEFINITELY southern" and someone who said "believe me, i'm from Texas and Maryland is DEFINITELY northern", whether or not others agreed no one seemed too concerned by the topic.
But you go on and say something on City Data and BAM! 100 Page thread with people throwing *%#^ at each other.
Interesting question, of course, but there are only (hmmmmm) possibly 14 million other threads over just the last three years, related to this subject. LOL And it always leads to nothing but strong opinions (and trolls) on a subject that has forever been the subject of debate (since about 1960 or so, at least) and always will be. If it weren't? Then the subject would not pop up like popcorn...
And I agree is IS an interesting subject! The problem usually comes in when people who -- when it comes right down to it -- know nothing about Southern history/culture...and it start fights by posting facts they cannot back up at all...
But anyway, IHMO, (and that is all it is) "the South" can be defined (along with a hundred other definitions!) generally speaking -- as those states where a majority of residents (according to the most extensive surveys ever done...and over 7 years) reflected where they not only considered themselves to live in the South, but thought of themselves as Southerners. These were the 11 Old Confederate States, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. West Virginia was on the borderline.
This survey (conducted at the University of North Carolina as part of the Southern Focus Poll) is available on line. But naturally, there are going to be some who will disagree with it. Just as there are going to be some (many, in fact, as it is! LOL) who disagree with those "Deep South Purists" who not only define the South as limited to just a few states...but actually believe that the fact they are from a generally acknowledged "Deep South" state, gives them the default credentials to do so.
Hell...I actually laugh a bit about it. I know a few people (some are even distant kin), who really think the fact they are from (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, whatever) gives them the automatic sheepskin to "define the South."
Sorry...birthplace alone are not Southern history/heritage credentials!
I wish that study you are referring to was broken down to the county level. Several counties in the bootheel would probably have >90% of the population claiming to be southern (and for good reason), but Missouri as a whole definitely isn't more southern than midwestern. I would be one of those from the bootheel claiming to be southern, although I'm not completely sure which way my county as a whole would feel.
Interesting question, of course, but there are only (hmmmmm) possibly 14 million other threads over just the last three years, related to this subject. LOL And it always leads to nothing but strong opinions (and trolls) on a subject that has forever been the subject of debate (since about 1960 or so, at least) and always will be. If it weren't? Then the subject would not pop up like popcorn...
And I agree is IS an interesting subject! The problem usually comes in when people who -- when it comes right down to it -- know nothing about Southern history/culture...and it start fights by posting facts they cannot back up at all...
But anyway, IHMO, (and that is all it is) "the South" can be defined (along with a hundred other definitions!) generally speaking -- as those states where a majority of residents (according to the most extensive surveys ever done...and over 7 years) reflected where they not only considered themselves to live in the South, but thought of themselves as Southerners. These were the 11 Old Confederate States, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. West Virginia was on the borderline.
This survey (conducted at the University of North Carolina as part of the Southern Focus Poll) is available on line. But naturally, there are going to be some who will disagree with it. Just as there are going to be some (many, in fact, as it is! LOL) who disagree with those "Deep South Purists" who not only define the South as limited to just a few states...but actually believe that the fact they are from a generally acknowledged "Deep South" state, gives them the default credentials to do so.
Hell...I actually laugh a bit about it. I know a few people (some are even distant kin), who really think the fact they are from (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, whatever) gives them the automatic sheepskin to "define the South."
Sorry...birthplace alone are not Southern history/heritage credentials!
As always, right on the money!
TexasReb: he can handle those provincial Deep South Purists one City-Data post at a time.
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