South vs. North?

[SWTXBelle]

CH2tf - so you had maybe one conversation about this with a southerner, but you heard the "At least we won the war" comment once or twice? Doesn't that kind of prove my point? The fact that you had only the one conversation despite going to grad school in the south seems to also support another observation of mine - that most southerners are too polite to bring up the subject.
In all my years in NJ I never brought up the subject - but upon hearing my accent northerners felt obliged to comment on the north vs. south thing. If southerners were exactly the same, you should have been the reciepient of many of the same kind of comments I was subjected to, and yet by your own admission you were not.
Sociologists have noted that southerners tend to identify with their region to an extent that northerners do not; linguists have found to their surprise that instead of dying out, regional accents are in fact continuing to be an important identifying charcteristic of regional groups. I would hope that everyone could appreciate regional differences without resorting to insults.
I don't want grits in Maine, scrapple in Georgia, Tex-Mex in Tennessee or Philly Cheese steaks in Florida. I'm using food as my metaphor, but I'm personally glad that different areas of the country continue to be unique, and only wish everyone could appreciate the diversity of this country. Years as an Air Force brat taught me that there is something to enjoy no matter where you live. I enjoy visiting other areas of the country, and have often decried in my newspaper column the spread of strip centers and chain restaurants - too many areas of the country look exactly alike!
I'm also very glad I live in the south - told my husband the Yalie that I'd follow him anywhere, as long as it was below the Mason-Dixon.