Southern Manners

earllogjam

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Why are folks in the South for the most part better mannered, more cordial, polite, courteous, and all around nicer to strangers than the rest of the country? I think its more complex than it appears to be. Are they just happier people? Or am I just being delusional?

Will the Southerners here please entertain us with your theories. Much obliged....
 

danerain

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Why are folks in the South for the most part better mannered, more cordial, polite, courteous, and all around nicer to strangers than the rest of the country? I think its more complex than it appears to be. Are they just happier people?

Will the Southerners here please entertain us with your theories. Much obliged....

I live in the south, people here are assholes and when people from other places come here they are generally dissapointed.
 

earllogjam

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I live in the south, people here are assholes and when people from other places come here they are generally dissapointed.

I went to a graduation in the Deep South last week to Columbus, Georgia on the Alabama border outside of Atlanta and I don't think I've ever traveled to a place where the people were so damn nice. It was strange at first expecting that these people were after something but it turned out that they were just genuinely nice. Just everyday folks, like at the Piggly Wiggly were so accommodating and went out of their way to help you. Strangers said hi to each other, smiled. This isn't a small town either.

Most everyone there was just polite, and courteous, civil. I've traveled to Texas, South Carolina and other parts of Georgia and I've experienced the same thing. It's like being in a Twight Zone episode coming from a large city. Now everyplace has its assholes but there seems to be less when I travel to the South.

The South is such a contradiction for me - on one hand they exude Southern hospitality and are personally friendly and polite, but on the other hand they live with a legacy of slavery, discrimination, and red neck values. Not sure what to think of it, maybe the grass is just greener over that hill. If I lived there maybe I'd think different.
 

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There is a difference. My uncle was a musician and traveled all around the country. He also, said that southern people were more hospitable.
 

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Earlogjam,

Sweetheart, I think you have touched upon the crux of the matter. As is the case everywhere, people are full of contradictions. People in the South are not monolithic. What one experiences may depend upon where, when, with whom and how. I do believe that there can be a layer of gentility true and deceptive presented during brief encounters. They may have their company manners and their "Come to Jesus" manners! LOL! Often I have seen it happen time and again that someone will have just been sliced rather deeply with a piece of cake and a smile and not know they are mortally wounded until the blood starts flowing. Having been raised by Southern parents, I fully understand the language of facial expressions and the dreaded "Bless your heart! " Which usually means its recipient has symbolically torn a personal article of clothing and exhibiting tender parts for the world to see...:biggrin1:











I went to a graduation in the Deep South last week to Columbus, Georgia on the Alabama border outside of Atlanta and I don't think I've ever traveled to a place where the people were so damn nice. It was strange at first expecting that these people were after something but it turned out that they were just genuinely nice. Just everyday folks, like at the Piggly Wiggly were so accommodating and went out of their way to help you. Strangers said hi to each other, smiled. This isn't a small town either.

Most everyone there was just polite, and courteous, civil. I've traveled to Texas, South Carolina and other parts of Georgia and I've experienced the same thing. It's like being in a Twight Zone episode coming from a large city. Now everyplace has its assholes but there seems to be less when I travel to the South.

The South is such a contradiction for me - on one hand they exude Southern hospitality and are personally friendly and polite, but on the other hand they live with a legacy of slavery, discrimination, and red neck values. Not sure what to think of it, maybe the grass is just greener over that hill. If I lived there maybe I'd think different.
 

rob_just_rob

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The South is such a contradiction for me - on one hand they exude Southern hospitality and are personally friendly and polite, but on the other hand they live with a legacy of slavery, discrimination, and red neck values. Not sure what to think of it, maybe the grass is just greener over that hill. If I lived there maybe I'd think different.

You may have hit the nail on the head - perhaps people are polite to make up for, or cover up for, their prejudices. I haven't spent a lot of time in the US south, but I've seen similar types of compensatory behaviour manifested in other places and other people.

I can't believe I'm about to cite Stronzo by way of example, but I believe he pointed out this sort of contradiction in his neighbours and relatives who were polite and friendly to him and his partner, but still signed the petition against gay marriage.
 

earllogjam

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They may have their company manners and their "Come to Jesus" manners! LOL! Often I have seen it happen time and again that someone will have just been sliced rather deeply with a piece of cake and a smile and not know they are mortally wounded until the blood starts flowing.

Naughty, are you bursting my bubble?

Ahhhh ignorance was bliss. Let me live in my fantasies damn it.
 

earllogjam

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I can't believe I'm about to cite Stronzo by way of example, but I believe he pointed out this sort of contradiction in his neighbours and relatives who were polite and friendly to him and his partner, but still signed the petition against gay marriage.

Rob- who is this Stronzo? Is this person an urban legend? References to him pop up on a lot of threads here and not in a good way. It's the Italian word for "turd", you know.

Back to the thread-

Is this contradiction the basis for some of the best American novelists coming out of the South?

It's hard to believe that they are all faking their niceness though. They all come across as sincere. Are you saying that under all that honeysuckle sweetness lies an odeous bile of conceit, duplicity and evil? Hmm.
 

rob_just_rob

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It's hard to believe that they are all faking their niceness though. They all come across as sincere. Are you saying that under all that honeysuckle sweetness lies an odeous bile of conceit, duplicity and evil? Hmm.

Nope. I haven't spent enough time in the US south to make such a generalization.

I am saying that I've seen that sort of hypocrisy in other places and other people.
 

danerain

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Earlogjam,

Sweetheart, I think you have touched upon the crux of the matter. As is the case everywhere, people are full of contradictions. People in the South are not monolithic. What one experiences may depend upon where, when, with whom and how. I do believe that there can be a layer of gentility true and deceptive presented during brief encounters. They may have their company manners and their "Come to Jesus" manners! LOL! Often I have seen it happen time and again that someone will have just been sliced rather deeply with a piece of cake and a smile and not know they are mortally wounded until the blood starts flowing. Having been raised by Southern parents, I fully understand the language of facial expressions and the dreaded "Bless your heart! " Which usually means its recipient has symbolically torn a personal article of clothing and exhibiting tender parts for the world to see...:biggrin1:


Noooooo, not the "Bless your heart!"
 

B_big dirigible

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Rob- who is this Stronzo? Is this person an urban legend? References to him pop up on a lot of threads here and not in a good way.
S. was a member, now banned, noted for his extraordinary bigotry. By "bigotry" I don't mean redneckism (whatever that is), but an absolute assurance that he knew what he knew and that was that. (Aside from that personality flaw, he was fairly intelligent; which should be a lesson for us all - even smart people can be repellant when they act "dumb".) He was the sort of guy who would never entertain, not for an instant, the possibility that someone with, say, reservations about gay marriage might have decent philosophical or practical reasons for that opinion. He would rant on and on that it could only be homophobia. His real offense, so far as I'm concerned, was that he and his rants were tiresome and notably devoid of insight or original thought.

I don't know why he was actually banned, though. That's one of those secret "moderator-only" things. I recall some hints about frequent abusive PMs.
 

cklover

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The southern accent and manners are charming...otherwise, they (southern people) are EXACTLY the same as people anyplace else. Warts and all!
 

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Are you saying that under all that honeysuckle sweetness lies an odeous bile of conceit, duplicity and evil? Hmm.

That is a line worth remembering! As a confirmed Northeasterner, raised in the shadow of NYC, I generally run screaming from the South. However, I have spent some time there and thought about related issues. It seems to me that Southerners are more concerned about "how things look" to other people, and tend to put more of a premium on "playing nicely" at least for public consumption (Think of Texas' driving motto "Drive friendly!"--yeah, right.) Thus I so think the sweetness is a social veneer--not necessarily covering that memorable "odeous bile"--but a fairly thin layer nonetheless.

I don't think they are inherently any nicer or less nice than anybody else, but it's apportioned differently--more stratified, I might say, enriched at the surface rather than spread more evenly throughout.

Of course, these are all generalities. Perhaps I should shut up so we can hear from more people who actually live there (poor things....:rolleyes: )
 

prepstudinsc

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That is a line worth remembering! As a confirmed Northeasterner, raised in the shadow of NYC, I generally run screaming from the South. However, I have spent some time there and thought about related issues. It seems to me that Southerners are more concerned about "how things look" to other people, and tend to put more of a premium on "playing nicely" at least for public consumption (Think of Texas' driving motto "Drive friendly!"--yeah, right.) Thus I so think the sweetness is a social veneer--not necessarily covering that memorable "odeous bile"--but a fairly thin layer nonetheless.

I don't think they are inherently any nicer or less nice than anybody else, but it's apportioned differently--more stratified, I might say, enriched at the surface rather than spread more evenly throughout.

Of course, these are all generalities. Perhaps I should shut up so we can hear from more people who actually live there (poor things....:rolleyes: )

Yankees don't understand us and never will, bless their little hearts. I wish they would all go home and stay there.

Southerners are just the nicest people in the world. If you don't like the south, you don't have to stay. Some of us, having lived in other parts of the US, like it here. If you don't understand our mannerisms, our accents, our way of life, there are three options--study it and appreciate it, live it and love it or don't come down here and annoy us.

Now, would y'all like a glass of lemonade with that?
 
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chico8

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I've dated three southerners. All were as sweet as honey on the outside but so totally fucked up on the inside from the facade they were forced to construct as they grew up.

Ya'll may be sorta cute 'n all in your ways but man! sometimes you just gotta tell it like it is! Enough of that damned pussy footing around!
 

prepstudinsc

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Fuhgeddaboutit!

:biggrin1:

LOL

Here is a little story to explain the differences between Yankees and Southerners...

There were two ladies sitting on the front porch sipping tea. (That would be sweet iced tea, for you non-Southerners) So the first lady, who was a Yankee said, "Ya know...up north we have women who love other women." The southern lady, with all her gracious charm said, "Well, I'll be...I have never heard of such things. What are they called?"
The Yankee woman said, "they're called lesbians."

Then the Yankee woman said, "ya know, we also have men who love men"
The gracious Southern woman replied, in her loooong drawn out accent, "well, what are they called?" She was told, "they are called homosexuals."

So not to be outdone, the little Southern lady said, "well you knooow, dooown heah, we have men who like to lick women's private parts."
The Yankee replied, "what're they called?"

The little Southern woman said, "welll, I'm not really sure, but when he did it to me...I called him Precious." :eek:
 
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