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Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,540,027 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool
Great Lakes people know next to nothing of farm and rural living unless they live 2 hours away from a major city center. They're mostly used to highly urbanized regions unlike typical Midwestern people who even if in a city, aren't far removed from corn fields and rural life.
In general you had me until this paragraph.
Have you been to the areas outside of and between Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse? Super rural farm country populated highly by Mennonites. And about an hour or so south of them you start hitting Appalachia.
Linguistics alone are a giveaway. Midwesterners speak in that neutral, accent less speech associated with newscasters for the most part (unless it's Cincy or St. Louis). The Great Lakes have their own accent spanning from the Upper Midwest to the interior Northeast that's a very nasal and grating sound that many outsiders find unpleasant. Basically it combines the nasal Northeast dialect and holds its breath even longer.
I agree the Great Lakes has a strong accent, but I don't believe in the idea of a "neutral" accent. Everyone has an accent; what's neutral to my ears isn't neutral to others.
Quote:
Put simply, if you're going to take West NY out of the Northeast, go ahead, but classify it as Great Lakes and not Midwest because I assure you, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit share more in common with each other and Buffalo than they do with Cincy, Indy, or St. Louis.
I don't get why Cincy, Indy, or St. Louis are more Midwest than than Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit; both equally so. The latter contain more of the region's population anyway. An interesting breakdown of the Midwest:
Have you been to the areas outside of and between Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse? Super rural farm country populated highly by Mennonites. And about an hour or so south of them you start hitting Appalachia.
Fair enough, friend. Was referring to extremely large city centers near 1 million in pop. but I didn't do well of explaining that.
I recant that statement as Milwaukee, only 90 minutes away from my home is close to farmland.
I agree the Great Lakes has a strong accent, but I don't believe in the idea of a "neutral" accent. Everyone has an accent; what's neutral to my ears isn't neutral to others.
I don't get why Cincy, Indy, or St. Louis are more Midwest than than Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit; both equally so. The latter contain more of the region's population anyway. An interesting breakdown of the Midwest:
Well, what I more so meant is that the GR region spans across two and is culturally apart from either region it's a part of. I just don't find it fair to say Western NY is Midwestern because of the GR cultural connections. We are different up here than down in the central Midwest.
Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and maybe Minneapolis are essentially their own region that is different than
Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas City.
The former have higher White ethnic populations and are faster paced. The latter are less diverse in White ethnic groups and are slower paced. The former speak in their own dialect. The latter in a different one. Great Lakes culture is more immigrant based and not as "Middle American" as that of the Midwest. Many in the GR region stay in touch with cultures of their non-Anglo origins. The dialect alone reflects this. It's more "international". I guess if I had to sum up Great Lakes vs Midwest, Great Lakes is much less WASPy. Up in the Great Lakes, ties to the "old country" are worn proudly. I feel that it's different in other regions wherein being "American" comes before the hyphen.
Btw, I know of Cincy's proud German population. I don't consider that the same because Germans aren't AS prominent in the Great Lakes to the degtee further South and I consider Germans WASPy. Yes, I am well aware of German plurality in Wisconsin and Milwaukee, but the difference is that in the Great Lakes, other White ethnic groups match the German percentages strongly. Further South, Germans and English make up a larger percentage. Also, English Americans don't make up a very significant part of Whites in the Great Lakes. They're even less represented by far than Germans. Again, don't come in here and remind me that cities like Milwaukee and Chicago rep Oktoberfest hard because that is not an argument I am making. German surnames do occur up in the GR region, but they're met with equal amounts of Irish, Polish, and Italian ones. English surnames on the other hand rarely as seen in the Great Lakes in Whites. Blacks are more likely to have them than Whites up here.
Anyway, I think it's inaccurate to say the Midwest begins in Western New York. It's not entirely like the rest of the Midwest. It's a region unto itself. I also know some people are probably going to read this post and think that I am discounting the German presents in the Great Lakes. Again, there is definitely a German presence up there. However, there is way more white ethnics represented up there. It's nowhere near as high as in the Northeast but it still high for the Midwest.
Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 10-24-2015 at 03:48 PM..
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