As you can probably tell, I'm finished reading Ulysses. I got curious about the official "border" between North and South (is there a border between the East and the Midwest?) and I found this great article which is full of interesting and idiosyncratic facts:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/where-does-the-south-begin/70052/
It features several different maps and ways of determining the beginning of the South, including a map of where you could buy sweet tea at McDonald's prior to their national rollout in 2008.
It has my favorite defnition ever:
What those accents have in common, according to Rick Aschmann's research of regional dialects, is that the South is defined by areas where people pronounce "pen" as "pin."
Learning to say "pen" instead of "pin" has been one of the goals of my adult life. Apparently the "i/e" substitution is common across multiple twangs and drawls, throughout the south.
According to this piece, both southern Indiana and southern Illinois are part of The South.
Sorry for the formatting problems in this post...
ReplyDeleteI don't think I can cotton to that monkeyshine that Indiana and Illinois are part of the south. But maybe that's because I'm from the FARTHEST south. : )
ReplyDeleteAlso SWEET TEA. YES. Only they drink that in TX too. My how I love my sweet tea (rotting my teeth now just as I think of it.)
I can make you sweet tea the next time I see you. Yes, in this map, Texas is part of the South, even though Texans don't agree. (Did you enjoy the Oxford comma I gave you?)
DeletePS Are you able see my posts below this now? One about the Mason Dixon Line? Thinking maybe they didn't publish.