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I'm on Team Alicia, since she is using big linguist words and I do find that very persuasive. But then stl4man is very passionate and obviously peeved by the whole notion, so maybe I'll go with Team stl4man. Naah, I'll go with booklarnin' on this one.
But what I really came on here to say was that it is very possible for someone to lose an accent, since I have lost my SEMO accent after having been away for 20 years. I recently listened to a recording I made in my teens, and oh my God I had the thickest accent. I didn't think so at the time, but I was wrong. Hoo boy was I ever wrong. Now I'll still throw in some fixin' to's, y'all's, all y'all's, and y'ins from time to time, but I really just do it to annoy my wife.
It may be that nothing about your part of Missouri is southern, but it should go without saying that a state that borders Tennessee and Arkansas is going to have some southern influence.
My grandparents lived in the Ozarks; I still have an aunt and cousin that live there. They are unambiguously southern in their culture, values, accents, speech patterns, mannerisms, etc. If you came up to the Chicago area for a visit, you probably wouldn't look or seem out of place. But the aunt and cousin were up here not too long ago, and they were like fish on a bicycle.
It should also go without saying that Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio (not the Chicago area of course) have southern influence because they border Kentucky. Anyone who says Southern Indiana and Southern Illinois and Southern Ohio have no southern influence is blind. As far as the Ozarks go, in Missouri for the most part they are a mixed bunch. I too have family from the Ozarks (my father's side of the family resided in the Southwest Missouri area for over 100 years)...as far as their mannerisms went, it was pretty difficult to pin down they were Southern. Where exactly in the Ozarks did your grandparents live? That could be a big factor in determining it. The Ozarks maybe 160 years ago could've been classified as purely Southern, but they have had extremely large influx of foreigners (lots of Germans and Italians), as well as people from all over the country since the Civil War, as well as many from Kansas City and St. Louis. In fact, before the Civil War, the vast majority of people living in the state of Missouri had been born and raised in other states (if I recall, something like over 70% of the state's population claimed to have been born outside of Missouri). The Ozarks lie within an area that is bordered on the north by St. Louis and on the south almost by Little Rock...and those two cities are about as opposite as you can get. So it is safe to say that the Ozarks are a hodgepodge of Midwestern and Southern. There are people I know from Springfield, Rolla, and Lebanon who would seem just like anybody else from around here. Of course, I also know some people that have the Southern speech patterns, but it is far from being the standard accent. You can't pigeonhole the Southern half of Missouri (except really for the very far southern parts and the bootheel) into any one area, because in terms of dialect and culture and cuisine, pretty much everything except religion, it is nowhere near as Southern as Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia. The Southern influences are there and noticeable, but it definitely doesn't feel decisively Southern to me. It feels like something in between Southern and Midwestern. And I know this area very well...probably better than this AliciaBradley, as I've been visiting it for over a decade. And btw, my accent is about as far from Southern as you can get
I'm on Team Alicia, since she is using big linguist words and I do find that very persuasive. But then stl4man is very passionate and obviously peeved by the whole notion, so maybe I'll go with Team stl4man. Naah, I'll go with booklarnin' on this one.
But what I really came on here to say was that it is very possible for someone to lose an accent, since I have lost my SEMO accent after having been away for 20 years. I recently listened to a recording I made in my teens, and oh my God I had the thickest accent. I didn't think so at the time, but I was wrong. Hoo boy was I ever wrong. Now I'll still throw in some fixin' to's, y'all's, all y'all's, and y'ins from time to time, but I really just do it to annoy my wife.
Where did you move to exactly, and where in SEMO where you from? I still have a very difficult time believing you can go to a perfectly flat accent. It can get flatter, I definitely don't dispute that, but unless you moved to someplace very geographically distant like Canada, you should still have at least a trace of it left. I'm pretty certain if I heard you talk, I would be able to hear at least something. When I was in high school, our nurse had been residing here for over 40 years. She grew up in Alabama, and still had a noticeably Southern accent...(Sikeston, Missouri is the farthest north in Missouri I've heard an accent like that). It seems like Alicia Bradley is the brick wall...as far as any "booklarnin'"...every dialect map on google that I've looked at analyzes the y'all, y'ins, fixin'...etc....doesn't correspond to anything she's said. The reason I'm not putting any images up is because all you have to do is type "Southern dialect" on google image and you'll get maps that have been collected from numerous surveys done over the past 20 years. There are so many contradictions to what she's claiming that I'm thinking she's the brick wall around here. Clinton must be some magic kind of place, because Jefferson City, Columbia, and Sedalia don't have the kinds of accents, culture, and cuisine she is claiming. Springfield and Joplin have it to a degree (yes you can get sweet tea there)...but according to my dad growing up there in the 1960s they didn't have it. Not to mention, Springfield, while it clearly is in the Bible Belt buckle in terms of religion, also has a lot of Catholics and Midwestern influence and cuisine. If Alicia wants to dispute it, fine...she's wrong...and frankly, we're not the final judges anyway. Until the Census Bureau decides to redraw regions, and until I see St. Louis and Kansas City displaying the kind of culture Alicia claims, I'm not buying any of it. To say these places are anomalies...two different cities...and that characteristics of the rest of the state somehow magically bypass them in all directions is a quick and shallow solution of explaining things away....I also know for a fact that things don't magically change when you exit either of these cities...they change gradually as you go further south and north over 100 miles. So is her obviously claiming Rush Limbaugh's mother being from SEMO without even bothering to check that she might not be from there. I have yet to see her offer any solid proof backing her claims that I can't effectively dispute.
I lived in rural (west-central) MO for twenty years, which included more than half of my childhood (and obviously a good chunk of my adulthood, thus far).
Like I said, I'm tired of battering against a brick wall, here, but here are a couple non-anecdotal nuggets of food for thought (and they're not even linguistic this time).
In the Civil War, Missouri was a Union slave state, just like Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland.
Missouri McDonald's locations (the rural ones, anyway, all the way up to the northern part of the state.. not sure about the urban StL and KC locations) offered mass-manufactured Southern items on their menus - Biscuits 'N' Sausage Gravy (for breakfast), Fried Catfish (seasonally), etc. Mind you, this was back in the '80s and '90s, before the recent "Southern Style Chicken Biscuit" was introduced nationally.
An overwhelming majority of the original settlers in Clinton, MO came from a small handful of locales in the northern part of the South - Kentucky (most original Clintonians came from here, actually), Tennessee, the western part of Virginia (now West Virginia), and the western half of North Carolina. The rest, with so few exceptions that they can be considered negligible, came from the southern (and culturally Southern) halves of Illinois and Indiana, with tiny smatterings from Appalachian SW Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, etc. Literally without exception, every member of the tiny Clinton chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution use as their 'patriots' gentlemen that lived in one of the Southern colonies. (Don't ask me how I know this... if I told you, I'd be revealing a bit more about my life outside C-D than I'd really care to. )
And then, of course, there is all the anecdotal evidence (again, I'm not even going to go into linguistic evidence, here): the prevalence of clogging and other 'dying' Scots-Irish Appalachian arts, cuisine (homemade, giant-kettle-cooked hominy grits; lots of dishes containing okra [and an amazing amount of okra, including canned and frozen, in supermarkets]; etc.)...
Even Mark Twain considered Missouri to be 'Southern' with a capital 'S.' And if your response to this piece of evidence is something like, "Well, maybe it was Southern in some distant period in the past, but it isn't anymore," I suggest you spend some time in small towns throughout the state... heck, visit Henry County, where I used to live, and check out the curious little towns around the Truman Reservoir. I think the real problem here is that - possibly - you're assuming places like Iowa (beyond a few teeny, tiny towns right on the IA-MO border that actually share some cultural characteristcs with MO), Nebraska, northern Illinois, etc. are as Southern, culturally (I suppose you would call this "General Midwestern"), as is Missouri. Oh, and BTW, you don't have to go far into Iowa before you hit the true North - my dad is from Burlington, not too far from the MO border, and rural Missourians sound *very* Southern to him.
Last edited by Alicia Bradley; 04-24-2010 at 04:37 PM..
I lived in rural (west-central) MO for twenty years, which included more than half of my childhood (and obviously a good chunk of my adulthood, thus far).
Like I said, I'm tired of battering against a brick wall, here, but here are a couple non-anecdotal nuggets of food for thought (and they're not even linguistic this time).
In the Civil War, Missouri was a Union slave state, just like Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland.
Missouri McDonald's locations (the rural ones, anyway, all the way up to the northern part of the state.. not sure about the urban StL and KC locations) offered mass-manufactured Southern items on their menus - Biscuits 'N' Sausage Gravy (for breakfast), Fried Catfish (seasonally), etc. Mind you, this was back in the '80s and '90s, before the recent "Southern Style Chicken Biscuit" was introduced nationally.
An overwhelming majority of the original settlers in Clinton, MO came from a small handful of locales in the northern part of the South - Kentucky (most original Clintonians came from here, actually), Tennessee, the western part of Virginia (now West Virginia), and the western half of North Carolina. The rest, with so few exceptions that they can be considered negligible, came from the southern (and culturally Southern) halves of Illinois and Indiana, with tiny smatterings from Appalachian SW Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, etc. Literally without exception, every member of the tiny Clinton chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution use as their 'patriots' gentlemen that lived in one of the Southern colonies. (Don't ask me how I know this... if I told you, I'd be revealing a bit more about my life outside C-D than I'd really care to. )
And then, of course, there is all the anecdotal evidence (again, I'm not even going to go into linguistic evidence, here): the prevalence of clogging and other 'dying' Scots-Irish Appalachian arts, cuisine (homemade, giant-kettle-cooked hominy grits; lots of dishes containing okra [and an amazing amount of okra, including canned and frozen, in supermarkets]; etc.)...
Even Mark Twain considered Missouri to be 'Southern' with a capital 'S.' And if your response to this piece of evidence is something like, "Well, maybe it was Southern in some distant period in the past, but it isn't anymore," I suggest you spend some time in small towns throughout the state... heck, visit Henry County, where I used to live, and check out the curious little towns around the Truman Reservoir. I think the real problem here is that - possibly - you're assuming places like Iowa (beyond a few teeny, tiny towns right on the IA-MO border that actually share some cultural characteristcs with MO), Nebraska, northern Illinois, etc. are as Southern, culturally (I suppose you would call this "General Midwestern"), as is Missouri. Oh, and BTW, you don't have to go far into Iowa before you hit the true North - my dad is from Burlington, not too far from the MO border, and rural Missourians sound *very* Southern to him.
Boy, if you were tired of arguing with a brick wall, you're sure not acting like it. The original settlers mean nothing to me, because we are talking 200 years ago, and many of these people were displaced after the Civil War. The Missouri that Mark Twain grew up in is not anywhere close to the same one as today...if you think that is false, then I guess you're caught in a time warp. If you think I consider Missouri as northern as Iowa, you'd be wrong. Iowa is the Upper Midwest. I have driven from Cedar Rapids to St. Louis on numerous times, and I can say for a fact that if rural Missourians sound very southern to your dad, he must either have a hearing problem or have a different perception of a Southern accent than I do. It sounds like the two of us have very different perceptions. Oh, and the availability of okras in supermarkets....you can get those in Cleveland, Ohio for god's sakes...hominy and grits? Haven't seen those in most restaurants anywhere in Missouri, although I will say that my dad grew up with it. One thing. Fried catfish? I looked up fried catfish for McDonald's and found nothing...no record of it ever having been on the menu. And where is your proof those weren't offered in other neighboring states at the same time? Iowa has zero Southern culture that I can tell of, and I don't perceive any in the Northern half of Missouri...I have never seen any McDonald's in any part of Missouri that offered the things you are describing, nor can I find any in Columbia (googling) that offer it. Once again, if there were all this Southern culture you are talking about, how it hasn't touched or penetrated into St. Louis or Kansas City is beyond me...that is physically impossible for that to happen. Even if Missouri had those back then, McDonald's offered sweet tea in their restaurants for years in other states, Missouri only began offering it in their McDonald's a few years ago. Who is to say that any of the items offered on the McDonald's menu in Missouri weren't available all over the United States at that time? This is turning into a pointless argument. Your dad has a right to his opinion, but Iowa would be strongly Southern influenced if you were able to successfully pigeonhole Missouri as entirely Southern. As far as ancestry, that doesn't dictate anything. The American Revolution...this is getting good...you want to use almost 300 years ago to dictate today. This argument is a waste of my time and energy. Have fun with your Southern campaign. I will offer you something you can't debate...agriculturally and geographically, Clinton is in the Midwest. Explain away all that corn and grain. I'm probably going to make your day and say you won't be hearing from again. You stick to your opinion, I'll stick to mine...frankly, I've got better things to do with my life than do an extraordinary amount of research to verify whether you're accurate or not. It doesn't affect me, one way or the other. Have a nice life and good luck getting the rest of Missouri (outside of this forum) to agree with you. I can guarantee you that you've got a long way to go to rally support for your opinion
If Missouri is southern why isn't it mention with most southern states on a more consistent basis? When I think of the south I think of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
I don't mean to sound like I'm clueless to the fact that Missouri might be considered southern, but I'm kind of in the neg on this subject.
I confess I haven't read the thread thoroughly, but so far I haven't seen one person try to make the case that Missouri as a whole is Southern. The point you seem determined to miss is that there is a difference between being considered Southern and having Southern influences. It's not like there's some instantaneous delineation at the Missouri/Arkansas border where everyone is like "OK, if you live on this side of the line then you should walk/talk/quack like a Southern duck, but if you're on that side of the line, you should walk/talk/quack like a Midwestern duck." Rather than that sort of delineation, Southern-to-Midwestern is a continuum. And the transition from one to the other happens, among other places, in Missouri.
If Missouri is southern why isn't it mention with most southern states on a more consistent basis? When I think of the south I think of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
I don't mean to sound like I'm clueless to the fact that Missouri might be considered southern, but I'm kind of in the neg on this subject.
Actually a lot of people down here in Memphis consider MO to be part of the South and they think of St. Louis as a Southern city. Not that I agree or anything, St. Louis is definitely not Southern to me, but just saying, most people down here seem to think that it is Southern.
Ya-allll ain't liven tell ya eat breakfast dinner and super with a tall cold glass of sweet tea. I don't know that they don't make any other kind but I reckon that some do. Gritts, fried okra, biscuits, fried pickles, country ham, sweet tea, and mac and cheese (fried or not) are the only foods the are in the food pyramid in the real south. As they say ya-allll ate yet? Come on over and get ya some, you'll be glad ya did.
Ya-allll ain't liven tell ya eat breakfast dinner and super with a tall cold glass of sweet tea. I don't know that they don't make any other kind but I reckon that some do. Gritts, fried okra, biscuits, fried pickles, country ham, sweet tea, and mac and cheese (fried or not) are the only foods the are in the food pyramid in the real south. As they say ya-allll ate yet? Come on over and get ya some, you'll be glad ya did.
Worst attempt at *sounding* southern yet. So, first time troll poster, it's "y'all," "tell" should be "til," biscuits hafta be served with sausage gravy, etc.!
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. The original settlers mean nothing to me, because we are talking 200 years ago, and many of these people were displaced after the Civil War. The Missouri that Mark Twain grew up in is not anywhere close to the same one as today...if you think that is false, then I guess you're caught in a time warp. If you think I consider Missouri as northern as Iowa, you'd be wrong. Iowa is the Upper Midwest. I have driven from Cedar Rapids to St. Louis on numerous times, and I can say for a fact that if rural Missourians sound very southern to your dad, he must either have a hearing problem or have a different perception of a Southern accent than I do. It sounds like the two of us have very different perceptions. Oh, and the availability of okras in supermarkets....you can get those in Cleveland, Ohio for god's sakes...hominy and grits? Haven't seen those in most restaurants anywhere in Missouri, although I will say that my dad grew up with it. One thing. Fried catfish? I looked up fried catfish for McDonald's and found nothing...no record of it ever having been on the menu. And where is your proof those weren't offered in other neighboring states at the same time? Iowa has zero Southern culture that I can tell of, and I don't perceive any in the Northern half of Missouri...I have never seen any McDonald's in any part of Missouri that offered the things you are describing, nor can I find any in Columbia (googling) that offer it. Once again, if there were all this Southern culture you are talking about, how it hasn't touched or penetrated into St. Louis or Kansas City is beyond me...that is physically impossible for that to happen. Even if Missouri had those back then, McDonald's offered sweet tea in their restaurants for years in other states, Missouri only began offering it in their McDonald's a few years ago. Who is to say that any of the items offered on the McDonald's menu in Missouri weren't available all over the United States at that time? This is turning into a pointless argument. Your dad has a right to his opinion, but Iowa would be strongly Southern influenced if you were able to successfully pigeonhole Missouri as entirely Southern. As far as ancestry, that doesn't dictate anything. The American Revolution...this is getting good...you want to use almost 300 years ago to dictate today. This argument is a waste of my time and energy. Have fun with your Southern campaign. I will offer you something you can't debate...agriculturally and geographically, Clinton is in the Midwest. Explain away all that corn and grain
