Missouri...Southern or Midwestern? (Kansas City, St. Louis: legal, malls, ordinance)

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by joebaldknobber

St. Louis is a river city like Memphis.

That's also all that St. Louis has in common with Memphis. Cincinnati is a river city, Detroit is a river city, Minneapolis and Saint Paul are river cities...just because St. Louis is a river city doesn't mean St. Louis is like Memphis. St. Louis is Midwestern in every single form. Memphis is Southern in every single form.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by Northwoods Voyager

Having 'lived' in Chicago and St. Louis, I find that St. Louis and Chicago have less in common than some would believe. Over the years, St. Louis has lost population, has lost it's once great place in the grand scheme of things. Chicago has advanced. Chicago gives the appearance and is exciting, progressive, and booming. Our St. Louis has stagnated in many ways.

The St. Louis that I knew as a younger person does not exist. Too many politicians and greedy people have seen fit to stifle the growth that should have occurred. I still love my hometown, but for different reasons now. It's like an old flame that I knew as a 20 something now turned into a 70 something that has just sat on the sidelines and drank a few too many beers and tossed down a few too many fast food burgers. Has not got up and checked out what is going on down the street. A couch potato, but a lovable couch potato. Full of memories but living in the past.

My St. Louis needs a double dose of forward thinking and hope. Maybe a blood transfusion??? Now, before some of you get all bent out of shape, I am not putting down your St. Louis. Just wishing that MY St. Louis still existed and maybe pushed up from the couch and did some exploring. Now before you wonder how can you keep the past and advance?

Easy, keep what was once good and advance from there. Somewhere along the line, a link has been missing.

There are few cities in the Midwest that prospered like Chicago. Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit, and Cleveland all fell on hard times and suffered similar fates...the Rust Belt effect was a big contributor to those.

[ozarksboy]

OK, here's my keen-minded and sharp-witted analysis on this important subject that has stoked so much fiery discussion. Feel free to disagree, but the best evidence I know that Missouri is not Southern is this: Few Missouri women freely use "honey" or "sugar" or "baby" or "darlin'" in conversation. My wife is a Southerner and she sprinkles her talk with such expressions. At least, she used to; she's been in Missouri for more than six years now, and she doesn't spread the "sugar" and the "honey" around as much as she did when she first arrived in the Show-Me State. Is she turning into a Midwesterner? Boy, howdy, I hope not.

Now, there is a handful of Missouri women who will "darlin'" or "honey" you and make you melt. Most of them are waitresses. In the store where I work, a sweet cashier called me "honey" and "sweetie" a couple of times, and I said, "Are you a Southerner?" No, she said, just a lifelong Pulaski County girl. So, yes, there are a few Missouri women who will "sweetie" you, but not enough to rate Missouri as a Southern state.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by ozarksboy

OK, here's my keen-minded and sharp-witted analysis on this important subject that has stoked so much fiery discussion. Feel free to disagree, but the best evidence I know that Missouri is not Southern is this: Few Missouri women freely use "honey" or "sugar" or "baby" or "darlin'" in conversation. My wife is a Southerner and she sprinkles her talk with such expressions. At least, she used to; she's been in Missouri for more than six years now, and she doesn't spread the "sugar" and the "honey" around as much as she did when she first arrived in the Show-Me State. Is she turning into a Midwesterner? Boy, howdy, I hope not.

Now, there is a handful of Missouri women who will "darlin'" or "honey" you and make you melt. Most of them are waitresses. In the store where I work, a sweet cashier called me "honey" and "sweetie" a couple of times, and I said, "Are you a Southerner?" No, she said, just a lifelong Pulaski County girl. So, yes, there are a few Missouri women who will "sweetie" you, but not enough to rate Missouri as a Southern state.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing

[joebaldknobber]

Originally Posted by ajf131

That's also all that St. Louis has in common with Memphis. Cincinnati is a river city, Detroit is a river city, Minneapolis and Saint Paul are river cities...just because St. Louis is a river city doesn't mean St. Louis is like Memphis. St. Louis is Midwestern in every single form. Memphis is Southern in every single form.

Why is it important to be labeled Midwestern? Detroit, Toledo, Gary, Indiana are clearly superior cities.

[northbayeric]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Humor, eh

Yepper! Hurts too much to cry right now! Well, OK.... Seriously, thank you ajf for the kind word. Seeing these Passions billboards is just a blight on what is a great state. I don't want folks visiting Missouri from adjacent states to get a negative impression of it.

So much nicer to drive Highway 36 from St. Joe to Hannibal IMO--right in the very heart of the Midwest!

[GetmeoutofAR]

I know lots of Missouri women who use words like darlin honey and sweetie etc

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by joebaldknobber

Why is it important to be labeled Midwestern? Detroit, Toledo, Gary, Indiana are clearly superior cities.

Oh here we go, when you don't have an opening, you decide to go for me believing that being Midwestern is better than being Southern, which is a load of crap. St. Louis is Midwestern not because I say it is or because I think being Midwestern is superior to being Southern, but because most of the facts speak for themselves. The dialect is Midwestern, the industry and culture of St. Louis are Midwestern, the architecture is Midwestern, the landscape it is situated on is Midwestern, it gained in African American population during the Great Migration due to its being a historic manufacturing center like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland and as the vast majority of historians would say, part of the Rust Belt, and it has a humid continental climate...hot and humid summers and cold winters that see a decent amount of snow, and oh yes it is a blue city politically and in its metro area. And, like its fellow Midwestern cities, St. Louis experienced a huge decline in industry around the 1950s and lost much of its population to the suburbs and white flight. St. Louis is Midwestern in just about every conceivable way. It's not good that it experienced such heavy industrial decline and lost so much of its population...but it is simply THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER. Memphis and every other Southern city share in very little of these characteristics. Politics may be the only exception in which a few Southern cities lean more blue than red.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by GetmeoutofAR

I know lots of Missouri women who use words like darlin honey and sweetie etc

Maybe they do...I've also heard plenty of women from all over the country use those terms...I actually cannot think of one state that I have been to where i was not called that by a woman at least once..maybe it's just because I am good with them... in any event, it's definitely conceivable that women from the Southern half of Missouri could have a tendency towards that, especially the closer you get to Arkansas.

[midwestfella]

okay everybody why dont you let the people from missouri say what it is im from southern missouri and i never felt like it was the south but i lived in tn for 3 years and one thing i do notice our accents are very very similar basically the same but when i go to south carolina they dont sound nothing like folks from tn i mean does drinking sweet make a state the south lol that sounds so stupid i love sweet tea and allmost everybody i know in missouri drinks sweet tea im from southern MO and when i go to saint louis folks sound juss like me use the same slang same accent and i mean i dont notice no differnce till i moved up here on the east coast were people say im so country or say i sound like im from down south it get so annoying but point of the matter is its the mid west yes southern part has rolling hills lol but missouri is the mid west it falls under that catergory i mean if you think bout it where right next to the south maybe thats why people consider it so southern but to me tn and missouri has alot in common examples some of the southern missouri housing looks alot like the housing in tn we even have some of the same apartments. african americans like myself pronouce there heres, theres, and hair like hair and here would come out like hur or her like i need to get my hur done or why wont you come over hur and there would come out as thur or you it just does i dont know why and anotha one is i never say you dont lol it allways comes out as yen like yen gotta do that but tn and mo have those in common and like i said even in saint louis we have the same accents but point of the matter is im from southern mo and i still never got that down south feeling thats just me but i know alot of folks from southern mo like the boot heel and juss swear its the south but its the midwest point blank period nothing wrong with the south cause i love the south half my family resides in the south but point blank period missouri is a country mid west state and i love it