The North has Bloomingdale’s, the South has Dollar General.
The North has Coffee Houses, the South has Waffle Houses.
The North has dating services, the South has family reunions.
The North has switchblade knives; the South has Lee Press-on Nails.
The North has double last names; the South has double first names.
The North has Indy car races; the South has stock car races.
The North has Cream of Wheat, the South has grits.
The North has green salads, the South has collard greens.
The North has lobsters, the South has crawfish.
The North has the rust belt; the South has the Bible belt.
FOR NORTHERNERS MOVING SOUTH. . .
In the South: –If you run your car into a ditch, don’t panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don’t try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
Don’t be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store…. do not buy food at this store.
Remember, “Y’all” is singular, “all y’all” is plural, and ‘all y’all’s’ is plural possessive.
Get used to hearing ‘You ain’t from round here, are ya?’
Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.
Don’t be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can’t understand you either.
The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner’s vocabulary is the adjective “big ol’,” as in big ol’ truck or big ol’ boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it.
The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.
Be advised that “He needed killin’ ” is a valid defense here.
If you hear a Southerner exclaim, “Hey, y’all watch this,” you should stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he’ll ever say.
If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn’t matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.
Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.
In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.
AND REMEMBER:
If you do settle in the South and bear children, don’t think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, jus’ ’cause the cat had kittens in the oven, don’t mean we’re gonna call ’em biscuits.
Thanks Denny
Here comes Mr. Stick in the Mud. Yes, there is a lot of humor here, and it’s all stereotyped. The kind of humor meant to drive a stake between peoples from the United States of America. The kind of humor meant to distract us from what the Money Party is doing: systematically destroying the middle class, fomenting useless fights between people from different regions and backgrounds, stealing from us in the form of bank bailouts and multi million payoffs for CEOs. Denying us basic human rights, as talked about in the Declaration of Independence. I sometimes wish I had happy pills.
If there was a Civil War rematch now the South would win.
Some of those difference are valid for Italy, too! Especially those about the pronounciation, the “killin’ defense” and the children with guns…
i was in louisiana on business with a group of people and ordered an Arnie Palmer with lunch. the waitress (who wasn’t young by any means) just paused and looked at me like, “I’m sorry but the bar isn’t open”
“It isn’t alcoholic… it’s half lemonade, half iced tea”. Big pause.
“Y’all ain’t from around here are ya? Sweet tea?”
“What’s sweet tea?” Another big pause as she was trying to think how she could describe the sky was blue. “Um, sure, sweet tea is fine”
well, that was a mistake i won’t make again… the straw practically stood straight up with all the sugar in that baby.
I agree with you Heath. Northerners have such a distorted view of the south. And I am saying that as a Northerner that has lived in the south for 20 years.
Ordering tea is a good indicator of locale. Sweet tea is automatic in the deep South, but not Florida. Unsweetened tea is only found up North and in Florida (a regional outpost of the north). If the waitress asks “sweet or unsweet?”, you are in Virginia, Kentucky and parts of Tennessee and Norh Carolina. Much like ordering BBQ will tell you if you are East or West of the Mississippi; it’s mostly pork in the East and beef in the West.
And another piece of advice for Northeners moving South; we are not interested in how you did it back home.
I have lived in New Orleans my whole life. All I ever drink when I go out to eat is unsweetened ice tea, but you do have to specifically ask for it.
And kelly, in Louisiana, the bar is always open.
I am a Southerner and I enjoy this type of jokes, but y’all (however you want to spell it) has never and will never be singular, ever, in any context.
also, y’all is a few people, where all y’all is a whole bunch of people.
And if you say you all instead of y’all, you might not be from around here.
If you think making the South look stupid is funny, I’m out of here. Up to now, I’ve enjoyed your site daily. No more. By the way, don’t go to the Midwest; they’re REALLY stupid.
Hmmmm, me thinks John might be related to encor.
Well…remember, anytime you hear “Hey, y’all watch this,” it will invariably be followed by “Shoot, I can do that.” And it typically has similar results. Remember, in the North, folks say Screw You and it means “Have a nice day.” Down here, we say “Have a nice day” and it means Screw you. Remember that next time you head down to McDonalds in the South. Plus, we’ve got Cracker Barrel down here, thank you very much.
And for the snow storm, don’t you realize we have to purchase bread and milk? I’ve never understood why folks feel they must eat bread and milk sandwiches when there is a light dusting of snow, but that must be what everyone’s making because if there’s a flake in the forecast, there isn’t a drop of milk or a crumb of Bunny Bread to be found.
A lot of these are actually true I moved from Illinois to Alabama and no one could understand me and I couldn’t undersand them. When I first moved to Bama I asked for a coke and they asked me what kind (they finally had to explain to me that I needed to decide between Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper)
Paul in Boca :
Sometimes things aren’t stereotypes, they are just true:
Remember, “Y’all” is singular, “all y’all” is plural, and ‘all y’all’s’ is plural possessive. That is just how it is, and people from northern parts of the country might not know about it. But it’s just how it is.
The North has lobsters, the South has crawfish. Yeah b.c lobsters are in colder water in the north and crawfish likes swamps in the south.
If you wanna go on some rant about the bail outs find a better place to put your soap box. This blog post isn’t the place. The Government doesn’t create these stereotypes to distract you from what they are doing, trust me I’m sure they have MUST better means of distraction and secrecy than collard greens.