Is Dallas considered Southern to you? (Houston, El Paso: 2013, airport, suite)

[IEtoTX]

I'm 30, and I am originally from LA, and had never been further East than Utah or Arizona in my life. A job came along that required me to do extensive traveling through the South and also needed me to move to Dallas. For the past eight years I have been all through out the South and this is my two cents

1. You rarely can divide a region in the US by state boundaries anymore.

2. If you create a checklist of what's Southern and what isn't (by people, landscape, weather, religion) you cannot have any Southern town fit 100% that description.

3. You cannot look to historical events to conclude a city, county or state as "Southern"

With that being said, for being "Southern" the further North you go to the mid Atlantic and mid west it gradually becomes less Southern. The further South you go in Texas or Florida the more Latin it becomes. The further West you go past state lines into Oklahoma and Texas the less Southern you get.

DFW is where the South ends and the Southwest begins with Dallas being a Southern town with a little Southwest influence and Fort Worth being a Southwest town with a little Southern influence.

If the whole point of this, is draw a line in the dirt and say "the South ends here" you draw it in Dallas, you cannot draw it at state lines in this case.

[nonexpat]

Locals, say "y'all" in Dallas, so that means it's the South Funny, but we just moved to Albuquerque, and although I'm from the North, I find myself using Y'all after living in Texas for almost 11 years. People in New Mexico don't say "y'all". It's a very useful word since English is missing the plural form of you!

[busterkeaton]

I believe it will have to do with who you ask; and usually the answer you'll receive is based on their own projection of how they wish Dallas to be perceived.

[Trae713]

The longer I live here, the more I feel that DFW is not southern. Funny tho, because just a couple of hours east of Dallas on I-20, it starts feeling southern. Right about where the pines start.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by nonexpat

Locals, say "y'all" in Dallas, so that means it's the South Funny, but we just moved to Albuquerque, and although I'm from the North, I find myself using Y'all after living in Texas for almost 11 years. People in New Mexico don't say "y'all". It's a very useful word since English is missing the plural form of you!

The following cities also say y'all.
Chicago
Washington D.C.
St. Louis
Detroit
Baltimore
San Francisco
Los Angeles

These are all Southern cities, right? DFW is Southern but it's Southern Lite. It has characteristics of the Great Plains Midwest, Southwest, and West with the think big Texas attitude. Outside of the Black communities in South and Southeast Dallas, it has NOTHING in common with Jackson or Birmingham. In the future, I see DFW Southern culture dilution continue. Houston will have a better chance to retain it's Southern culture. But it's not far behind DFW.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by Trae713

The longer I live here, the more I feel that DFW is not southern. Funny tho, because just a couple of hours east of Dallas on I-20, it starts feeling southern. Right about where the pines start.

Right around Canton or maybe even Van is when it really starts feeling Southern. But the born and raised Black Dallasities will continue to relate to their Southern peers. The rest of the population though either never really had a relation to them or they are distancing themselves from being Southern. You can thank the transients domestically and internationally for this. Heck, maybe even the native Dallasites. This is what has happened to the Washington DC area for the past 50 years because they've always sat on the edge like DFW, Miami, and Houston to an extent. They could become very much influenced from other regions.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by nonexpat

Locals, say "y'all" in Dallas, so that means it's the South Funny, but we just moved to Albuquerque, and although I'm from the North, I find myself using Y'all after living in Texas for almost 11 years. People in New Mexico don't say "y'all". It's a very useful word since English is missing the plural form of you!

There was a great article in DMN years ago about "y'all" and "you - all". The piece featured an English professor who made the point you just made. And that others laugh at users of "y'all" and "you - all" when both terms solve a known technical weakness in the language.

[Nairobi]

Southern? Definitely.
Deep South? No.
Southeastern? No.
Southwestern? No.
Western? No.
Frontier West? Yes.

[Nairobi]

Originally Posted by Spade

Right around Canton or maybe even Van is when it really starts feeling Southern. But the born and raised Black Dallasities will continue to relate to their Southern peers. The rest of the population though either never really had a relation to them or they are distancing themselves from being Southern. You can thank the transients domestically and internationally for this. Heck, maybe even the native Dallasites. This is what has happened to the Washington DC area for the past 50 years because they've always sat on the edge like DFW, Miami, and Houston to an extent. They could become very much influenced from other regions.

Houston is more connected to the deep south, so it's not really in the same situation as the others.

IEtoTX made a good point in that virtually no city in today's South is 100% southern, and none of the big cities can fit the typical archetype of a southern town; not even cities like Atlanta or Charlotte.

"Southerness", as we know it, is being diluted far and wide, and not just in the border states.

[skids929]

Originally Posted by nonexpat

Locals, say "y'all" in Dallas, so that means it's the South Funny, but we just moved to Albuquerque, and although I'm from the North, I find myself using Y'all after living in Texas for almost 11 years. People in New Mexico don't say "y'all". It's a very useful word since English is missing the plural form of you!

Does that mean if I say "Yous" like the idiots up here in Boston say I will be out of place in Texas? I mean, that is truly plural. Sounds slightly more ridiculous than Y'all.

Bill Cosby could have a field day with this one..Southern Ebonics.