Boundaries

[MadGastronomer]

For the record, because some of the people here know me better than others: I lived in Detroit until I was 16, when my family moved to Nashville; I stayed there for another 26 years, and moved to Houston 10-nearly-11 years ago. So I have spent the majority of my life in (for lack of a better term) red states, but didn't get the same early-years conditioning as people who grow up here.

IME, the similarities between Texas and the Southeast are much more noticeable than their differences, and in particular, the use of "Yankee" as a pejorative is exactly the same in both places, and anyone born outside the boundaries of the Old Confederacy is a Yankee.

I am willing to accept txanne's take on this particular scene, but I still think that my reaction to having a guy I was dating say that to me would be very negative indeed.

Sorry, can't effectively snip that, on the AOP before heading into the club for my early birthday party.

Well, I must disagree with the defintion of Yankee as anyone not from the South. I was always taught that it was very strictly only those people from north of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi who could properly be called Yankees. I occaisionally find myself explaining to my PNW friends that, no, they are definitely not Yankees, they're West Coasters (and therefor "weird" or "hippies" according to the prejudices I was taught).

And of course prejudice is taught! I'll even tell you the two chief stories I learned it from if you like. New York nuns, poor little Southern kids, contests of will. (They wouldn't call my momma by her right name, and they made all the kids talk like Yankees!)

I'm well aware that I and the Seattlites who surround us both irritate her with our differing cultural norms. I just wish that she'd try to accept, as I attempt to, that Other Cultures Are Not Wrong, Just Different.

[Elizabeth Bear]

It'd be nice. but that's her work to do, after all.

Although if you felt brave, you could find a way to mention it to her, I guess.....

[MadGastronomer]

I have been trying, actually. Alas, the manners got programmed into me pretty hard, and so far every way I've been able to say it has been something that mans something else entirely in her language, as far as I can tell. The quickest workaround I've found for saying things bluntly and getting them past the internal censor is to get really irritated about whatever it is. As you can see, I'm working on that now.

[tylik]

I have serious cultural issues with many Californians, who I often find incredibly nosy and invasive. In turn, they tend to find me cold and aloof at best, rude and condescending at best. We're all going to have to get better at negotiating these differences, being aware of our own cultural relativism,  and adapting around each other's cultural programs as the world shrinks.

In my slightly cold befuddled state, I thought for a moment that you were alleging that Californians viewed themselves as the world's shrinks....

I am curious, though as to the invasiveness thing. As I've tried to adapt to Ohioan cultural norms, friends have tried to explain that there is a great deal of friendly nosiness which is par for the course here, and that things are considered polite conversation that in Seattle would be shockingly invasive. Of course, the same friends have tried to explain to me that people in Seattle are superficially friendly but essentially aloof and hard to get close to, and that everyone there is descended from people who moved to the back of beyond because they wanted to get away from other people, and it shows. (This tends to be accompanied by all kinds of anecdotes about all the things you can't do in Seattle, like get into conversations with strangers in coffee shops or the bus. Which I do semi-regularly. But apparently that's different.) Californians don't generally phase me.

(And in fact, I don't have trouble with Ohioans being nosy, generally. There is a greater assumption of mono-culture than I'm used to - there is a much greater expectation of divisions along race and class lines, but other distinctions seem to be less recognized or accounted for. But that's generally been a minor annoyance. The one area I have consistently run into problems with is mating behavior. There seems to be a much more rigid sense of gender roles, and the amount of street harassment, and the levels of pushiness and cluelessness completely blew my mind. Cutting my hair off has helped a lot in that respect.)

[MadGastronomer]

I had to learn how to have conversations with strangers all over again. It's done differently here than it was in Florida, which is a weird thing. I mostly have the hang of it now, though, I think.
And the questions that various people from different parts of the country think are and aren't ok to ask me always baffle me. Why does anyone want to know what personal errands I ran today, or exactly what my medications are for my bipolar (barring situations in which these are actually relevant questions, of course)?

[Elizabeth Bear]

I think pretty much ANYPLACE else's standard of polite inquiry is nosy by New England standards. You can live next door to somebody for twenty years, and it would be rude to ask anything more personal than "How's your mom doing?" And generally we don't volunteer information unless it's necessary or we're talking to a good friend.

Which is why we have weather--otherwise we'd have nothing to talk about.

But s/he'll come over and plow your driveway for you without being asked, because s/he was doing his own and it was neighborly.

Some of us take that "good fences make good neighbors" thing a little seriously.

There's an expression: "lace-curtain Yankee." Which means both "middle class Yankee" (or professional class) and also means we don't peek through each other's windows, even if the curtains are only lace. *g* (The common phrase is "suit yourself." And people do. I suspect this has something to do with the faster adoption of civil and gay rights legislation here, though Maine has *terribly* disappointed us all. But she's young and foolish yet and we expect she'll come around when she gets a few more years and some perspective.)

As a result, we tend to be awfully good at figuring out stuff about people from context.

I theorize that it's a cold-climate adaptation. Slows down the rate of cabin fever.

(On the other hand, Yankees say "morning" or "afternoon" to people they see out walking. Jim Macdonald and I were having a grand old time teaching the proper application of this custom to our VP students on Martha's Vineyard.)

....

...actually, some Californians MAY view themselves as the world's shrinks...

[jimsmyth]

Well, we've only been around since 1820.  Give us time.

 

[el_jefe]

...actually, some Californians MAY view themselves as the world's shrinks...

Well, if you go by the view that all psychologists have issues to begin with. . .


Don't get me started on the mess that is my former state. Personally, I am waiting until they legislate themselves back into grass huts. Then I will ride across the border with a conquering army and declare myself king.

[ebony14]

IME, the similarities between Texas and the Southeast are much more noticeable than their differences, and in particular, the use of "Yankee" as a pejorative is exactly the same in both places, and anyone born outside the boundaries of the Old Confederacy is a Yankee.

Speaking as a native Texan, born and raised, the idea that the term "Yankee" is a serious insult, rather than one used comically and without any serious weight, is kind of funny in and of itself. Texas is a big, big place, with a lot of different people in it. Please don't lump us all together.

As for the Southeast's use of the term, I couldn't say. I don't know anyone who uses the term, unless they're talking about the baseball team or the musical.

[Scedasticity]

It's interesting how these semi-joking regional condescension hierarchies work.  Everyone's seen the Geek Hierarchy, right?  (Although I would personally alter its wording as I do not consider 'geeky' an insult.)  There are a whole lot of double-ended arrows in the regional-prejudice arena.

I have however noticed that there seem to be a few states looked down on or pitied by all other states.  Say, North Dakota.  And possibly West Virginia.

...I actually self-censored that quip recently because someone in one of my classes is from West Virginia, and I wasn't sure he'd find it funny.  At the same time, Minnesotans, Wisconsinites, and Iowans rag on one another's states to one another's faces all the time (often in the context of inane college sports garbage).  (Interesting that I felt no need to censor that.)


A while back at another board I got involved in an attempt to explain to someone that referring to Tour de France judges as "frogs, er french" was in fact an ethnic slur -- yes, even if they didn't think 'frog' was considered a slur, even if the judges may not have been French.  The conversation went in circles for pages and pages and pages.  One of the things that came up is that -- for me at least -- a statement of that kind is worse when applied to someone about whom it is not literally true.  Say someone calls me a girl -- well, okay, yes.  I'm a girl.  Woman.  Whatever.  Points for observation.  On the other hand, if one male person says to another male person "you're a girl", then clearly it is not a statement of fact; from context it seems to be an insult; therefore it implies that 'girl' is an insult, even if the word itself is neutral.

Ah, context.

I had to learn how to have conversations with strangers all over again.

I still need to learn it the first time...

[MadGastronomer]

I have however noticed that there seem to be a few states looked down on or pitied by all other states.  Say, North Dakota.  And possibly West Virginia.

Definitely West Virginia. My father and his side of the family are from West Virginia, and I frequently get snarky comments when I mention that fact. I suspect that people from North Dakota would make snarky remarks about WV.

[Triffid Breeder]

Speaking as an English girl, I feel compelled to point out that, as your country is several times larger than the whole of Europe, considerable cultural differences between different areas should only be expected. The main issue is that pesky 'divided by a common language' thing, which even causes problems for us English people.

Trust me, the London-Yorkshire divide may only be a few hundred miles, but the cultural abyss is significant.

[miminnehaha]

I have however noticed that there seem to be a few states looked down on or pitied by all other states.  Say, North Dakota.  And possibly West Virginia.

...I actually self-censored that quip recently because someone in one of my classes is from West Virginia, and I wasn't sure he'd find it funny.  At the same time, Minnesotans, Wisconsinites, and Iowans rag on one another's states to one another's faces all the time (often in the context of inane college sports garbage).  (Interesting that I felt no need to censor that.)

Ah, context.

I love North Dakota... horizon everywhere you look (oh, horizon, I miss you so).
I'm not at all surprised to see you felt no need to censor about MN/IA/WI-- cause we don't take offense over a little thing like the truth.  And we do give each other a hard time-- like siblings!

[Scedasticity]

I meant the crack about 'inane college sports garbage', actually, since that's a little more -- ahem -- subjective than the indisputable existence of MN/IA/WI bickering.

[kayjayoh]

..I actually self-censored that quip recently because someone in one of my classes is from West Virginia, and I wasn't sure he'd find it funny.  At the same time, Minnesotans, Wisconsinites, and Iowans rag on one another's states to one another's faces all the time (often in the context of inane college sports garbage).  (Interesting that I felt no need to censor that.)

And Illinois, those Flatlanders, though Wisconsinites mostly rag on them in the context of driving. (FIBs and FISH)...

Of course, having grown up in Milwaukee I am contractually obligated to rag on Chicago when the opportunity presents itself. Otherwise they revoke my birth certificate. Mostly, I reserve my ragging for O'Hare, that circle of hell.