Comments on: A Reformed Yankee's Guide to Dixie

By: Kaeelle

Kaeelle — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:28:42 +0000

I’m born and raised Southern, and this is absolutely correct. 100%. We are nicer, we say “bless your heart,” we drink sweet tea morning, noon, and night. Turn signals aren’t standard features on all cars. The “dry” counties often have more alcohol in them than the wet ones.

Either way. If you’re coming here, expect us to be blunt, tell ya how it is, but love ya just the same.

By: stephanie

stephanie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:37:04 +0000

@msdarkstar-everything that fizzes is Coke in the South. I don’t know WHY we do it…..but even Sprite is Coke. Drinking Pepsi is unheard of, but if someone dares to do so…..they still refer to it as Coke….lol
you will love the south. if you are moving close to atl, look me up, I’ll welcome you with a beer! (See, there is that Southern friendliness and hospitality ;p )

By: stephanie

stephanie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:33:55 +0000

Well, now you have a point about the ‘Ville. I don’t think anyone ever has (except for me, with the massive road rage, lol)

By: stephanie

stephanie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:10:57 +0000

I love this! (however, I disagree about the honking of the horns….Atl rush hour is brutal!)
But you are dead on with everything else! This is great!!!

Outside of the city, though, you must admit- no one honks in F’ville, ever, now do they?

By: LiLu

LiLu — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:34:55 +0000

“It will do you no good to argue.”

I didn’t start to really enjoy my time in the South until I learned and accepted that mantra.

I still haven’t. Oh well….

By: courtney903

courtney903 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:56:13 +0000

when my parents came down to visit a few months ago i’d already grown accustomed to being called “ma’am” by the 16 year olds shopping at forever 21 and kind of thoughtlessly started referring to mom and dad as “ma’am” and “sir.” at first my dad was like, “sweet! a little respect!” but it didn’t take more than three or four times before my mom’s obvious discomfort was finally verbalized and she was all, “STOP SAYING THAT. IT MAKES ME FEEL OLD.” and i just laughed and i was like, “HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL?” i continued anyway, until it started getting to my dad a little bit too, and he was all, “hey. STOP IT. i’m on vacation and you’re making me feel like i’m still at work!”

i love the south.

me too.

By: jeluttrull

jeluttrull — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:02:40 +0000

Oh how true all of those “rules” are. Of course, I have always been on to call those older than me sir or ma’am. And, how true it is that the Southerner’s are a little skeptical of those that are outsiders (I deal with it all the time).

Love the post, Cat. Wish I would have seen something like this about a year ago when I was getting ready to move down here.

Yeah, I learned all this stuff the hard way too.

By: msdarkstar

msdarkstar — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:11:52 +0000

Very enlightening!

I worked with a gentleman from Alabama once and he referred to the front desk staff as “hon”… People were MORTIFIED. I understood that it wasn’t meant as anything other than the fact that that’s how people from the South speak and he wasn’t trying to “belittle” or “objectify” women.

And the above #2… there is NOTHING about where I am now that is better than pretty much anywhere in the South.

Although I have never lived in the South, I have gotten reprimanded by bosses for calling them “Sir” here. Or Mr. Lastname…. the typical comeback is “Mr. Lastname is my father, you should call me Firstname”.

I think the only real problem will be the “blinkers are optional” as that drives me absolutely insane. All I want to know, car in front of me, is what your intentions are.

Will the fact that I refer to soft drinks that fizz as “soda” be an issue? *smile

Well, the use of sir and ma’am is different down here. I call one of our senior managers by his first name, but if he calls for me, I generally say “yes, sir?”. Or at least I did until he told me I made him feel old, which will happen, but you should let them tell you that.

Soda won’t get you into near as much trouble as “pop”, which gave me fits when I first moved down.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:00:32 +0000

I thought it was the War of Northern Aggression, or the War Between the States?

I probably should have seen this list last August to help ease my integration into southern life. Also, I prefer un-sweetened tea, that should have been an early sign.

I would say I’m a Yankee but I’m from California, so I’m not really anything, haha.

Yeah, how did you Westerners escape a label?

By: Doni

Doni — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:45:16 +0000

Yes, yes YES I LOVE THIS POST. Sweet tea IS the stuff of gods, I STILL call even my friends ‘ma’am’ and ’sir’ and use both terms with my parents still. Blinkers are SO optional and u-turns can happen ANYwhere.

“Bless her heart,” is an ongoing joke in my family because you can say ANYTHING about ANYONE so long as you follow it with that, and you didn’t just talk trash about someone or talk behind their back.

One thing I’d add – terms of endearment. I call people – boys too – “honey” and “sweetheart” and such. Sometimes I’m flirting. Often, that’s just my southern roots. I brought a boyfriend from MN down to Memphis with me one summer in college and he thought EVERY waitress was hitting on him when she’d ask “what kind of coke you want, sweetheart?”

Oh – and Coke vs. Pop. That’s another. I may do a follow-up to this as I’ve wanted to address the “honey” thing before.

Yeah, people who bitch about terms of endearment have just not been called worse often enough. Glad you liked my post!