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In your experience, is there any truth in the stereotype that people are more formal in their style in the South? To what extent has it remained more old-fashioned and less casual? Do you think people are more dressed up at the office, church or going out of the house in general? Have you noticed differences within the South?
I've never noticed the south being more formal in anything (not that it's a bad thing), but I know historically it had that sterotype as the "old south".
In your experience, is there any truth in the stereotype that people are more formal in their style in the South? To what extent has it remained more old-fashioned and less casual? Do you think people are more dressed up at the office, church or going out of the house in general? Have you noticed differences within the South?
Wading through all the stereotypes, I'd say the only one that holds true is that the south is more old-fashioned in terms of style, across all age groups.
If you want to peg us as "more formal" or "more casual", you really have to accept that it is situational. There are certain nuances that make it hard to stereotype one way or another.
For example, if someone wears a coat & tie to a football game, but is inclined to wear fishing clothes or full camo in public, then is this a proclivity towards formal or casual?
Go to any Wal-Mart in the South for your answer, at least as it relates to style. As for interpersonal relationships, it's arguable that southerners have a more genteel way of telling one to go f themselves.
Go to any Wal-Mart in the South for your answer, at least as it relates to style.
I figured someone would say this.
Why is Wal-Mart the authority on southern style? Do Wal Marts in Indiana look like a fashion show, or something?
Why not suggest that someone should go visit downtown Charleston on a sunny spring afternoon, for their answer? I guess middle and upper-middle class people wearing pastel colors and sperry topsiders don't jibe well with your stereotype.
In your experience, is there any truth in the stereotype that people are more formal in their style in the South? To what extent has it remained more old-fashioned and less casual? Do you think people are more dressed up at the office, church or going out of the house in general? Have you noticed differences within the South?
Yes. We all go to the supermarket in dresses and petticoats and carry a parasol to shade us from the sun.
It depended on class and where you are in the South. The South is a bit like old England in that it did have something of a class-system. If you were "white trash" or "hillbilly" you were likely going to stay that way and your manners would be more "low." Lower-class Southerners could therefore be blunt to the point of rudeness as I imagine was true of lower-class English in the nineteenth c. The more aristocratic Southerners were to be more genteel. (Poor-white Southerners remain a class perpetually "low" in most popular estimation)
Still I think respect for age tends to matter more in the South. Even among my relatively low-class Southern relatives you respect your elders and call them "sir" or "ma'am" or an equivalent. They didn't get dressed up though, except for formal occasions where people everywhere get dressed, and in some respects I'd say they were more informal than Northerners I know. Even moreso than poor Northerners.
Although some of this may no longer be as true as much of the South has "assimilated" to varying degrees.
Do Wal Marts in Indiana look like a fashion show, or something?
Absolutely not, but we like to think that's where all of the Kentucky transplants hang.
Relax, man, it was just a joke. I did spend 8 formative years in Arkansas, however, so you'll find that I love to challenge southerners' sense of manners.
In your experience, is there any truth in the stereotype that people are more formal in their style in the South? To what extent has it remained more old-fashioned and less casual? Do you think people are more dressed up at the office, church or going out of the house in general? Have you noticed differences within the South?
The answer is no......we're just like the north we just live in the south.
Even among my relatively low-class Southern relatives you respect your elders and call them "sir" or "ma'am" or an equivalent.
Sure, but inside you know they're still thinking, "*********, you old fart."
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