So very true. In the Midwest you can be in any number of cities within 2-3 hours. Chicago and Milwaukee are only an hour apart. Most of the major cities in the South are a healthy 3-4 hour drive apart.

True statement!

It's definitely too much of a melting pot. The entire city is growing exponentially with people from all over the country (and the world). I live just south of Memorial Park in the Galleria area, and I've been all over the Heights, River Oaks, etc., and I don't get a southern feel at all. Farther west - in Katy, the Woodlands, as HQWest pointed out - maybe.

Oh, absolutely. The Red Sox have a state celebration day for every New England state because their fanbase is mostly comprised of those six tiny states, and the New England Patriots are named as such for similar reasons (and also because the team is actually not that close to Boston). Boston is the cultural hub of New England, so we're all drawn to what goes on in it.

South Carolina, in my opinion, doesn't have one centralized hub but rather three fanbase regions-Clemson, Columbia, and Charleston, with less emphasis on Charleston because they don't have a college football team. South Carolinians root for a collegiate team not only because that's what's closest to them but also because even if they didn't go to the school lots of people around them have and it best represents that area.

Although CT tends to be split between supporting Boston and New York teams. You can even find a mix in certain areas of RI.

The University Of Alabama-Huntsville Men's Ice Hockey Team would love to see these people at their games.

Lol!

Okay, generally sports that don't involve ice or other cold things:)

Except for cold beverages ;) (says the Southern-born Carolina Hurricanes fan.)

So here's something that came up tonight that made me think of this thread...

I was having dinner tonight with my bf (who's originally from TX) and a friend (who's from South Africa). My bf was making fun of me because I call a shopping cart a "carriage," and our South African friend said that he calls it a "trolley."

What say you, GCers? Cart? Carriage? Trolley? Buggy? etc.

What do people tend to call them in your neck of the woods?

It's a cart. My parents/grandparents occasionally called it a buggy.

Cart or buggy. We call them buggies all the time in Louisiana.

Cart.

I'll cop to calling a water/drinking fountain a bubbler.

You mean caht and bubblah? ;)

Nope. :) I'm from the other state that calls it a bubbler. ;)

Being from another planet (California) we called carts – shopping carts.

What do north and south call vacuum cleaners? I have to poke fun of Ohioans. They call vacuum cleaners Sweepers. What the heck?
I remember during the beginning of my marriage my husband asked me for the sweeper. I figured he wanted to sweep something, so I gave him a broom. I will never forget his look.

I will have to say that there is quite a bit of southern 'influence' in St. Louis. A large percentage of the St. Louis-area population is either from southern Missouri or descents of family from southern Missouri. Southern Missouri, especially close to the Arkansas border, identifies strongly with the South. As a result, many people who moved to St. Louis for jobs carried a lot of southern traditions with them (and I don't mean the Confederate flag).

cart

Also, I find it interesting that many people don't consider Oklahoma to be "southern." From my upper midwestern perspective, every Oklahoman I've met has been a lot closer to southern than they are to midwestern, at least in terms of speech patterns and dialect. I saw a tornado survivor being interviewed on the Today Show this morning, and he said, "fixin' to."

Ha, heck yea!

For some reason, this made me think of Hawaii and the fact that they call flip-flops "slippahs".. and no, that isn't me using a Boston accent.

ASTalumna06,

You cracked me up with the slippahs. Growing up my mom would yell at me to put on my slippahs. My parents are originally from Massachusetts outside of Boston. Oh I can go on.

Do they also drive tha cah and bang a u-ey - most likely to avoid a gahkablahka and the troopahs - to hit up the packie, then head ova ta Stah Mahket to grab some Hoodsies and tonic? That's wicked pissah.

:D

ETA: This pretty much sums it up.

http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F

Btw, 'Sweet Caroline' is the only song I'm willing to sing at karaoke :)

Cart.

Cart sometimes. Buggy usually.

Uh, no. You got it backwards.

Having spent 20+ years in Fort Worth and almost 10 years in Dallas, I agree completely. And Dallas the city is rather bland.



Buggy. But now that I no longer live in Texas I do manage to work in "cart" every once in a while.

I won't lie, you have me stumped on "gahkablahka" and I speak fluent New England. I don't think that's ever happened before! I'm a little disappointed in myself, actually:( Something blocker?

Okay, now I can't stop myself from reading everything I type in a thick Boston accent (think Jerry Remy because I was just watching the Sawx).

SWEEEET CAROLIIIINE...BUH BUH BUUHHHH

Agree on all counts.

This reminds me of the "Mark Wahlberg talks to Animals" sketch from SNL.
"Say hi to your mother for me!"

The Rem Dawg!!!

And "gahkablahka" is a lot of traffic caused by people rubbernecking because of a car accident. Basically a "gawker-blocker"

Funny thing - the first time I said this at school in PA while driving with my friends, they thought I was calling someone a c*ck blocker .. :o:p

For the Win.

LOL...when you can google New Englandeze and get an answer, you know you can truly find anything on the Internet.

http://www.universalhub.com/glossary/gahkablahka.html

Midwesterners swear we're Southern, Southerners swear we're the Midwest. Geography books say we're Southwestern which is the most patently false of them all, and they won't take us either.

Oklahoma: America's red-headed step-child.

(I identify as Midwestern but other Okies disagree. With a deep-Southern father, and a northeastern mother, growing up in OK, I was always going to be a muddle.)

Oklahoma seems pretty southern, but honestly, Southerners are notorious for thinking that no other state is Southern but theirs (even if they are farther north than several others.) Growing up in Louisiana, we always thought that Louisiana was the epitome of Southerness...it's not. It's a special brand of Southern as are every Southern state. OK is just a really western "Southern" state.

Truth. On all counts.

I've lived in several Southern states from Kentucky to north Florida (newsflash: south Florida ain't the South) and if you have a practiced ear, you can tell which Southern state someone is from by their accent.
I also lived in Texas for almost twenty years and can tell someone from east Texas versus west Texas.

It's definitely possible to tell them apart. My boyfriend's suitemate from Tennessee sounded completely different from all the South Carolinians, North Carolinians, and Georgians floating around on campus. For a while I only knew him as the nice boy with the funny accent because it just stood out so much to my ears.

When I was at freshman orientation last year I used the word "wicked" in a conversation and the guy I was talking with stopped and said, "Wait, do people from New England really say that? I though that was just something Jimmy Fallon did in SNL skits!" I could not stop cracking up about it! I was the first real-life New Englander he had met, apparently.

YES! We lived in Texas for quite a while and the regional accents are very distinct. As well as the Middle, East and West Tennessee accents. You are right, sometimes we do stand out!

And if you have a really practiced ear, you can pin down the part of the state. I knew someone once who could peg where in North Carolina someone was from to within about 30 miles. Even today, with more mobility and the neutralizing effects of television, a western NC accent sounds nothing like an eastern NC one.

I don't get a chance to speak to many Eastern Carolinians, but I can definitely tell North from South Carolina accents.

I confuse people, because I've spent about 2/3 of my life in the North (Peoria, IL, where I got accused of having a Wisconsin accent), and 1/3 of my life in the South (Charlotte, NC). Add into that the fact that I'm just as likely to slip into a British accent or Scottish Brogue (albeit a bad one), and I stump even the most finely tuned ear.

You should really confuse them and throw in some true Down East High Tider brogue.

Anyone who has never heard it really needs to watch this. It's not the same as a Coastal Plains Eastern NC accent.

Very interesting!

Soda or pop? Coo-pon or cyu-pon? Maps reveal how America speaks:
http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/201...peaks#comments

And here are all 122 maps! You can select a map and a particular city to find out how a specific region speaks:
http://spark-1590165977.us-west-2.el...tz/SurveyMaps/

This is absolutely fascinating! There's one I love that I can't mention on here because it pretty much immediately identifies what state I'm from, but it completely describes us :)