Do people in Maryland consider themselves North, Southern, or in Between? (Baltimore: theatre, pharmacy)

[MD_IS_NORTH]

Originally Posted by mom2boys37

Well, to me and most MARYLAND IS NORTHERN. Sorry never heard of anyone from Murderland considering themselves southern. Yeah maybe south of New York and such but in no way shape or form is this state Southern. Ask for sweet tea and they will look at you like you have 10 heads.

LMFAO,,YOU ASK FOR SWEET TEA AND THEY GIVE YOU THIS

/I

FROM A MACHINE THOUGH LOL

[Tom Lennox 70]

Vivo, I understand what you're saying, my parents are Asian immigrants. I like to believe I'm a good ol'boy from the south, especially having lived in New Orleans until 7. Read my other posts and the images of the north vs. south and see why I'd rather present myself as and be seen as a southerner. I got a second job as a host in a restaurant (an Outback in Silver Spring) and I always say "ya'll" to customers instead of "you guys". When I use southernisms, I sound friendlier and it makes me feel friendlier and helps me do my job better. Politics aside, I love John Edwards's accent. A northern accent, in contrast, makes a person sound very rude, pushy, snotty, stuck-up, and arrogant.

As for the ethnic thing, it seems most African Americans here are laid-back and relatively friendly compared to whites and a lot of Jewish Americans in this area are very arrogant and snotty but its more regional than ethnic. Most blacks here are originally southerners and most Jews here have roots in the NY area. Jews I know who are actually Maryland natives are great people and black people I know who are originally from up north are very pushy, arrogant, uppity and snotty just like most other Yankees.

Why would I want to be from the north? I'd take a sprawling, strip-malled suburbia from Houston or Atlanta anyday over the rusting factories and crumbling public housing projects of Philadelphia and Newark. Unfortuantely Baltimore feels a lot more like Philly and Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit than a southern city. Baltimore's "famed rowhouses" are ugly compared to the stately architecture you see in New Orleans and Charleston and Savannah.

Plus, do you want downhome southern hospitality, friendly small towns, sweet tea, and front porches or would you rather want snotty trophy wives driving BMWs and arrogant, pompous guys in suits and cell phones reading the New York Times at Starbucks? Take you pick

[BarracudaB]

As a truck driver from California often caught in traffic in Boston, no doubt the Boston Area has the "flavor" and "feel" of the North East. Besides, ask around Boston and the area; which side of the War was Maryland on? Ha! You will find many to be ignorant, often insisting Maryland was with the North. If the real truth be told, it was primarily Southern delagates, less Virginia, who worked on and supported the 20 year deal. Unfortunately, the follow through of this quirky deal never caught any interest. I find it interesting that even under Lincoln, the Deal never raised its head. On the other hand, that Deal was the only agreement that actually led to the Union; without it your guess is as good as mine as to the fate of the then-weak and fledgeling Confederacy. We have a lot to be proud of from the very beginning, and that is where our focus should be now. Learn from the past and trudge forward! We are all Americans with much more in common than not.

[MD_IS_NORTH]

Delaware is not considered to be a southern state by many, especially New Castle County (the northernmost of the state's three counties), which is essentially the outermost portion of the Philadelphia region. While Maryland retains some southern culture in its more rural regions of Western Maryland, Southern Maryland, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the areas along the I-95 corridor, which make up much of metropolitan Baltimore and Washington, are most often considered to be culturally part of the Northeastern United States. In addition to this, Southern Maryland is also becoming increasingly more Northeastern in culture due to the expansion of the Washington suburbs into the region. Like West Virginia, the state was part of the Union during the Civil War, partially because of immense pressure to remain so to avoid the District of Columbia from being completely surrounded by Confederate territory.

Southern United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[MD_IS_NORTH]

The Northeast also has the second largest population of African-Americans, only behind the South. Most of the Black population resides in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey. New York has more Blacks than any other state, Pennsylvania is ranked tenth in number of African Americans, and New Jersey is ranked fifteenth. Maryland is the state with the largest percentage of blacks in the region. Massachusetts and Connecticut also have large Black populations, along with Delaware having a large percentage of its population African American, but a relatively smaller total population. The Northeast also contains the bulk of the African immigrant population in the United States. The largest neighborhood in Boston, Dorchester, has a surging Cape Verdean American population. Dorchester, along with Southeastern Massachusetts, specifically Brockton, Fall River and New Bedford, is the capital of Cape Verde Diaspora. Rhode Island has the highest percentage of Cape Verdeans in the nation and Massachusetts has the highest population and second highest percentage of Cape Verdeans. Dana Barros, from Boston is a notbale NBA Cape Verdean player.
The Northeast has the largest concentration and percentage of Jews in the United States, and their presence is most notable in the areas of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City,and southern New England. The region also has the highest amount of Hindus and Sikhs in the nation, with a slight lead over the west. This is due to the fact that the Northeast has more people of Indian descent than any other part of the country, and in the world outside India.

[vanyali]

Originally Posted by Terrapin2212

Vivo, I understand what you're saying, my parents are Asian immigrants. I like to believe I'm a good ol'boy from the south, especially having lived in New Orleans until 7. Read my other posts and the images of the north vs. south and see why I'd rather present myself as and be seen as a southerner. I got a second job as a host in a restaurant (an Outback in Silver Spring) and I always say "ya'll" to customers instead of "you guys". When I use southernisms, I sound friendlier and it makes me feel friendlier and helps me do my job better. Politics aside, I love John Edwards's accent. A northern accent, in contrast, makes a person sound very rude, pushy, snotty, stuck-up, and arrogant.

As for the ethnic thing, it seems most African Americans here are laid-back and relatively friendly compared to whites and a lot of Jewish Americans in this area are very arrogant and snotty but its more regional than ethnic. Most blacks here are originally southerners and most Jews here have roots in the NY area. Jews I know who are actually Maryland natives are great people and black people I know who are originally from up north are very pushy, arrogant, uppity and snotty just like most other Yankees.

Why would I want to be from the north? I'd take a sprawling, strip-malled suburbia from Houston or Atlanta anyday over the rusting factories and crumbling public housing projects of Philadelphia and Newark. Unfortuantely Baltimore feels a lot more like Philly and Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit than a southern city. Baltimore's "famed rowhouses" are ugly compared to the stately architecture you see in New Orleans and Charleston and Savannah.

Plus, do you want downhome southern hospitality, friendly small towns, sweet tea, and front porches or would you rather want snotty trophy wives driving BMWs and arrogant, pompous guys in suits and cell phones reading the New York Times at Starbucks? Take you pick

As if no Southern "gentleman" ever takes a Trophy wife. Please. There are more BMW's and trophy wives in my very Southern neighborhood than I ever saw in New York. Someone around here actually drives around a Silver Seraph Rolls Royce. I've seen it at least three times now. I used to think it was a Bentley, but then I looked it up, and it's a frigging Rolls Royce. And someone else has a gold Jaguar. Gold! Ran over my neighbor's cat with it, right in front of her kids. Didn't even apologize. He lives down the street. I'd say of the couples I've seen around here, probably half are made up of an old rich guy and a young thin woman always dressed in jogging clothes and a pony tail. Usually very blond. I'm in North Carolina.

I had a front porch ("stoop") in New York, and everyone sat out and chatted with the neighbors as they walked by. Here, even the few people who have porches don't sit on them, and even if they did, they're not going to chat with YOU or anyone else passing by, because they're too far away from the sidewalk for that to be practical.

New York brownstones are waaaaay prettier than 99% of anything you'll find in the South outside of some touristy or rotting ghetto downtown area in some old city in the middle of nowhere with nothing going on other than tourism and shipping (Charleston, Savannah).

And by the way, sweet tea in an abomination.

[MD_IS_NORTH]

Originally Posted by vanyali

As if no Southern "gentleman" ever takes a Trophy wife. Please. There are more BMW's and trophy wives in my very Southern neighborhood than I ever saw in New York. Someone around here actually drives around a Silver Seraph Rolls Royce. I've seen it at least three times now. I used to think it was a Bentley, but then I looked it up, and it's a frigging Rolls Royce. And someone else has a gold Jaguar. Gold! Ran over my neighbor's cat with it, right in front of her kids. Didn't even apologize. He lives down the street. I'd say of the couples I've seen around here, probably half are made up of an old rich guy and a young thin woman always dressed in jogging clothes and a pony tail. Usually very blond. I'm in North Carolina.

I had a front porch ("stoop") in New York, and everyone sat out and chatted with the neighbors as they walked by. Here, even the few people who have porches don't sit on them, and even if they did, they're not going to chat with YOU or anyone else passing by, because they're too far away from the sidewalk for that to be practical.

New York brownstones are waaaaay prettier than 99% of anything you'll find in the South outside of some touristy or rotting ghetto downtown area in some old city in the middle of nowhere with nothing going on other than tourism and shipping (Charleston, Savannah).

And by the way, sweet tea in an abomination.

Why do you say sweet tea is abdomination? I love sweet southern tea lol,its just not common in MD or in the northeast at all unless you visit these southern family owned restaurants lol.

[vanyali]

Originally Posted by MD_IS_NORTH

Why do you say sweet tea is abdomination? I love sweet southern tea lol,its just not common in MD or in the northeast at all unless you visit these southern family owned restaurants lol.

The sugar doesn't hide the taste of the tannins, and to me the sugar just accentuates it, making it taste horribly over-steeped. I can't take sugar in my coffee either. THAT was a big problem in New York -- trying to convince someone NOT to add things to your coffee. Even if you ordered it "black" they'd put sugar in it. You'd have to look them in the eye to convince them you were serious, and say "No cream, no sugar, just plain . . . black . . . coffee".

[westsideboy]

MDisNorth, I am not the one generalizing. I am saying different parts of MD and different people have different degrees of cultural identity with the North or the South. You are generalizing by aggressively trying to place the whole state into one basket.

Additionally, if you want to do some real, hardcore, academic research into linguistics, check out both William Labov's projects at the University of Pennsylvania and Hans Kurath's classic work "The Dialect Atlas of the United States" Both works clearly place Southern Maryland and the lower Eastern Shore into the Southern Dialect region. Nothing personal, but I hold their opinion in higher regard than yours.

Lastly, please stop posting in all caps and in bold font. I don't know how much you know about the internet, but typing this way is the equivilant of yelling at the top of your lungs.

[MD_IS_NORTH]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

MDisNorth, I am not the one generalizing. I am saying different parts of MD and different people have different degrees of cultural identity with the North or the South. You are generalizing by aggressively trying to place the whole state into one basket.

Additionally, if you want to do some real, hardcore, academic research into linguistics, check out both William Labov's projects at the University of Pennsylvania and Hans Kurath's classic work "The Dialect Atlas of the United States" Both works clearly place Southern Maryland and the lower Eastern Shore into the Southern Dialect region. Nothing personal, but I hold their opinion in higher regard than yours.

Lastly, please stop posting in all caps and in bold font. I don't know how much you know about the internet, but typing this way is the equivilant of yelling at the top of your lungs.

Ignorance at best! You hold there opinion higher than mine without even being aware of who i am.I am telling you what i know based on facts,my personal experience,you are not southern.The southern twangs that exist in the dialects in those areas mentioned are still distinct from the traditional southern accent,many of those residents have ties to the south that come decades ago,this is what you will not realize why a few parts of Maryland has a southern alike dialect,yet still according to a plethora of other sites that study the mid-atlantic dialect it still remains distinct from traditiomal southern accents found in Virginia on downward.Most Maryland dialects are northern or very neutral,the southern influence is because of the southern migration,which every state in the northeastern corridor has had,especially areas of Maryland closer to the south(Virginia),a large porportion of the african american residents in DC/MD come from the south,some as recent as 10 years ago,the accents popularize in some others due to the large influence due to its large southern migration,yet still most lose there traditional southern accents,adopting that mid-atlantic/northeastern dialect that already exist with its natives and surrounding areas and it is no longer a traditional southern accent

[SIZE=4]Baltimore[/SIZE]

[SIZE=4]Baltimore's dialect shares many characteristic pronunciations and words with its northern neighbor Philadelphia. One of these is the long o in words like home, which is very fronted, pronounced something like eh-oo. Otherwise, as we might expect, Baltimore's speech shows a distinctly Southern character. The diphthong oi is flattened to aw: bawl (boil), spawled (spoiled), as is long i before r: far (fire), arn (iron).

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