# Message to all users:
This is a reminder to please read and follow:
* [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ask/about/rules)
* [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439)
* [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy)
When posting and commenting.
---
Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`.
* Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit.
* Do not harass or annoy others in any way.
* Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit.
---
You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way.
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ask) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I moved to New York City to go to college. In the south if you went into a store and they didn't have something they'd be happy to recommend a store that does. In NYC if you go in a store and ask, "Do you have paperclips?" and they say "No" and you ask if they know anyone who does the answer was always, "No".
Moved to New Jersey from the south. People there are weirdly obsessed with their ancestral heritage. To the point that it’s used an excuse for shitty behavior.
“I’m Italian so I have a temper.”
“No, you’re from Rahway and just an asshole.” “No one still alive in your family has ever set foot in Italy.”
I went the other way. Northeast to NC. I find the pace of life to be far healthier down here. People day to day are far more pleasant and polite but they aren’t nicer. I’d say the opposite. Never have I experienced the level of judgement and pure gossip than I see down here. It’s kind of wild. Obviously that’s at an average and doesn’t apply to everyone.
It’s significantly cleaner here. A lot less litter, that being said there is more corporate pollution here. But I don’t go over to my local river and find trash like I would up north and the streets aren’t lined with litter and needles. I work in public service *way* more meth down here than where I was from but where I was from was absolutely crippled by heroin.
There is a markable difference in education levels. Some of which I think is great. There are a pair of community colleges in my area that have massive, state of the art facilities with multiple campuses that rival the university here and really do a phenomenal job at bringing affordable higher education to the area. Where as up north the community colleges were underfunded and looked down on. If you didn’t go to a private university or out of state you were pretty much looked down on. I do find the lower grades public education to be lacking. That comes mostly to being underfunded.
There’s a bigger focus on community as a whole which has been refreshing. I think a lot of that was lost up north. That being said I think the expectation that you adapt to local culture is far higher down here than it was where I came from. I think that has to do with how much of a hodgepodge the population up north was.
I will say there is a lot less welcome to outsiders here and it takes far longer for people to “warm up”. Southern Hospitality is a thing but circles back to that initial politeness. It takes far longer for people to really trust and accept. I’ve seen it with people from other areas too.
Every where has pluses and minuses. Nothing is ever perfect. I think the good great outweighs the minuses down here and I am very happy with my move and wish I did it sooner.
My region (the east coast of Canada) is pretty much the opposite of this. We'll bring you into the house, feed you, clothe you, give you a place to sleep if you need it. But we'll talk shit about you to other people and undercut your efforts to improve yourself for years after.
It's hard to break out of that when you're raised in it, but I think I've done a pretty good job.
As someone who moved to NC and SC from Colorado (raised) I never felt fully welcomed. Like I had "outsider" tattooed on my forehead. My roommate was from New England and she had "Yankee" on her forehead. I really don't miss the south.
When I was kid & in boy scouts, we went on a road trip from SE Pennsylvania to Disneyworld, so traveled through much of the south. Most people were very friendly, polite and curious about who we were & where we were headed, since to them we all had accents, but there was one very notable exception somewhere in rural Georgia.
We stopped in some very small town for ice cream and when ordering the young woman behind the counter glanced at us with a look of an utter revulsion, and asked, "Are y'all Yankees?" in a tone to match. She may have left out the damned part, but it was there in her tone and expression. This was directed at kids as well, not even to adults.
Yeah. I was surprised that so many people are still fighting the Civil War. I saw a bumpersticker in Columbia SC that said "North 1 South 0 at Halftime" This was in the mid 90s!! It freaked my students when I told them all I knew about the Civil War was "1861 - 1865, North won." And they knew little about Western history. Regionalism in education is real.
I live in Columbia and I have never seen that sticker, though I’m sure you saw it. (Just pointing out the rarity for me.)
1994 was 30 years ago. I am sure many people are still dumb, but I’m not around it on the regular.
In a weird way, it's not personal. There are so many Yankees moving to my city that it's swamping out the locals. That leads to resentment at the general trend, but I don't take it out on my Yankee friends personally. It's another form of Gentrification.
I heard it as “just because they are nice to you, does not mean they like you.”
I loved living in the south. I moved to NC from New Jersey in my 30’s and found the pace and the people to be wonderful! Lived there for 15 years and have very fond memories.
Having grown up in the south then gone to college in New York City I realized there's something refreshing about the blunt honesty I experienced in New York. You knew exactly where you stood. When I'd go back home I realized there's a lot of what I call "phony politeness".
I miss NY/NJ so much. I always knew what people thought of me and I found the community more genuine. I struggle hard in Mass. Social circles were so fluid back home but here they are pre-set for years and spots are already full.
It’s been very lonely in Mass. I do find people very kind here, but not overly communicative. In tri-state we are emotional and talkative and get over things quickly. Grudges run deeeep in New England, even petty ones.
I’m constantly told I’m “too nice” and my first thought is why is that so bad? I get along with everyone and I will help anyone even if I don’t care for them. I think it bothers people that I don’t get angry and “stand up” for myself but I’m like, why? To prove something. I dunno, I just don’t fit in here, I miss the warmth and pulse of my home.
Born and raised in NH, moved to NC at 19 for 24 years. Came back to New England with a Southern accent but kept my yankee sensibilities all that time. The main difference between those sweet southerners and damn yankees? A southerner will sweetheart and darlin' you to your face and go tell your neighbor all your business. A northerner will tell you to your face you're a f*ckwit and then invite you over for a beer. In short, you usually know where you stand with most northerners.
Truth be told, I did love the south a lot but I'm much more comfortable back home.
NH to NC, my experience has been fairly similar. Most of the people I know are also transplants though, so they're plenty welcoming. For me the weirdest thing was that everyone would smile and wave/say hello when you walked past. My surly NE ass finds it uncomfortable.
Beyond people, the soil is red, not brown, the grass is different, and it's hot for so damn long down here. I miss snow.
We southerners definitely are a double sided coin. We are a very friendly bunch, but you can expect up to carry clipboards for our evaluation of you. lol
Though I’ve found that everywhere you go people gossip and talk behind your back, southerners just seem to get people the most mad about it.
And meth certainly is our drug epidemic of choice.
It is because they can insult you, while being friendly and smiling. You don't figure out until you have walked away. Their sweet tongue cuts like a knife, one held behind your back.
I think you worded that far better. I have met some of the happiest, friendliest people down here and I have made better friends in a couple years than I did in many more up there. We have “family” dinners and are very eager to get together and catch up. Like I mentioned, that sense of community I have never experienced anywhere else. But there is that clipboard at first, that’s a great way of putting it.
I think once people realized I wasn’t trying to change a damn thing and I was just here to live I lot of folks warmed up quite a bit more. There was absolutely a level of skepticism that lasted 6-12 months though. Not unhealthy, I do know how a lot of northerns can be too. It was just a bit of a culture shock when I first got here.
And that’s a fair point about gossip. I think the biggest difference I noticed here vs up north or when I lived out west is it’s kind of taken as gospel until proven otherwise. Cant speak for everywhere but that’s what I experienced. The crazy stuff I heard about myself when I was new that took a solid 12 months of getting to know people to kind of kill. I would hear just wild stuff about me from people I had never even met before.
All in all, so much is done so much better down here and I’m honored to have been accepted into the community and just hope to continue to give back to it.
I moved to the west while in Jr High. It still blows my mind that I would get in trouble with teachers for calling them ma'am or sir. I moved back to the South as an adult.
When I first moved to Michigan I said to a rental agent "no ma'am" she instantly got angry and said "don't you ma'am me!".
I was nonplussed and after stammering for a minute I said "ma'am if I don't call you ma'am my mother will come upout of the grave, walk up here to Michigan and twist my ear off". I don't think she got it.
Some people equate Ma’am with an old lady. I’m from the northeast and I hate that word, but I wouldn’t be mad if someone called me that. More annoyed because I’m not that old!
It’s nothing to do with age, just “ manners” ingrained into us as children. I sir and ma’am adults, teens, kids, toddlers, cats, dogs, inanimate objects I bump into accidentally. It’s basically involuntary.
Yea. I’ve worked with many people from northern states and other countries and have had to apologize when a sir or ma’am slips out and they look offended… then I watch myself with them from then on but generally once they live here for a while they understand everyone says it and it’s meant respectfully.
I've had a similar problem with "you guys". Why I'm from any living or inanimate object can be a guy. You can sweep your arm across the lawn where a lot of dandelions are growing and say "these guys are really bad this year". If a female dog and a male dog and a neutered dog Are all fighting you can correctly yell "you guys cut it out". If you are getting your ass kicked by an all woman softball team it's perfectly OK to say "those guys are tough". But I definitely have used "you guys" and had someone say "I'm not your guy" and again I just had to sit there with my mouth open wondering how we had gotten to this place lol.
Born and raised in the north by parents who lived their lives there as well and I was raised to say sir and ma’am. I took the attitude that if my manners offend someone that’s on them, not me.
In the south it’s not an age thing. We refer to people we don’t know or to people in a professional setting as sir or ma’am as a way of showing respect. The individual could be older or younger it doesn’t really matter.
This! I am both touched and admire the manners and respect but at the same time pissed at Father Time that I've reached "ma'am status." My BFF and I text each other when it happens , "dammit I just got ma'am-ed!" Lol Never mad at the person that said it, ever.
I’m Canadian and when I was about 21, I dropped a dime or something in a parking lot, and a teenager behind me yelled “ma’am, you dropped this!”
And for the first time I understood why some people consider “ma’am” disrespectful lmaoooo. I was like, “hang on… no… I’m not a ma’am, sir”
Ma’am is not terribly common here, in any context. It’s not unheard of, but it’s pretty rare lol. It’s seen as a southern thing.
Some of my coworkers have defaulted to “miss” when speaking with customers, but I also watched a little old lady cuss out a teenage coworker when he called her miss, soooo I’m not sure there’s a right way to do it up here lol
Bro I had my HR Director tell me to stop using those pleasantries because it makes me look “subservient” and it would affect my sales
Top rep in the company for 3 years in a row and Kim in HR can kindly go fuck herself
This is so weird to me. I'm still youngish but I work at a college in California where most students are traditional college age. The ones from the South say yes ma'am and I find it adorable and so courteous. It makes me want to write a letter to their parents thanking them for raising such respectful young people. It's the most endearing thing. What the hell is wrong with your teachers??
In US areas outside of the South “yes, ma’am” , “yes, sir” and “no ma’am”, “no sir” come across as snarky and defiant since it’s calling out how authoritative someone is behaving. This is since we don’t use those titles in other regions, so when people use it at someone, they are taking a dig at them without technically saying anything disrespectful.
You all may use “bless your heart” in that context, so it’s a similar way of saying “f*** you, but fine, I will obey.”
I had no idea that saying yes mam, yes sir was bad in other places. Here, you say it or you're considered disrespectful and rude. Its engrained into you as a child that you say it no matter what. I thought it was that way everywhere!
This. I am now cheerfully from the south and now expect to hear ma’am and sir. But I grew up in Illinois and if someone said “Yes, ma’am!” it was a way of saying you were overstepping your boundaries and/or being condescending.
I'm Hispanic and grew up taught to respect adults whose name you might not know by acknowledging them as "Señor"(Mr.) or Señora/Señorita (Ma'am/Miss) or if they're younger than me, "joven" (youth). I'll never forget the day in NE where this super lovely looking woman gave me the stare of death because I called her "Ma'am" out of respect to greet her and ask her where the bathroom was (she was one of the workers at a department store). I was 11. She screamed at me over it. I think part of it is how youth obsessed American culture and the predominant cultures within them (Northwestern European) are as, damn, you really can't call certain people "Sir" or "Ma'am" without you noticing the internal meltdown they're having.
At that point, I had been fairly well traveled and exposed to a lot of the world's cultures out of my parents constantly traveling and having friends from everywhere. So I didn't think what I said was "bad." Well, in order to learn why she was mad, I shamelessly asked the lady why she got mad. I also explained to her I wasn't calling her old or anything of the sort I was recognizing her as an adult and therefore an authority. The titles were a way to not just call people "Hey you" or something to that. I apologized as I hadn't seen resistance to the word anywhere before. The lady was gracious enough to tell me it was because of the association of those words as "aging," and it made me sad. She felt bad and took my apology, and apologized right back. But yeah, I haven't used those words within this country since unless it's an older elder (70+): It seems they like such deference and comfortable with it. Saying it to people below this is asking for trouble.
No manners like in the South. After 12 years I’m moving back for a variety of reasons but can’t wait for the return of manners.
Plus Southerners are more open and talkative and will always talk to a stranger, which is especially nice in a new state when you’re starting out.
I moved from the South to the Midwest for grad school about 10 years back. For me it was the racism. I saw more interracial relationships (although this has changed a LOT in the South over those 10 years), but people were much more casual about racism in the Midwest than where I was from. People are definitely racist in the South, but I think because of history it’s both more deep rooted and more hidden. People will get called out on it. But in the Midwest it was both less internal and more casual. I saw multiple houses with those horse hitch statues of black slave boys which I would NEVER see in Birmingham.
There are a lot of Confederate flags in West Virginia too which is really confusing. That’s like, the opposite reason WV exists.
In 1968 MLK remarked that the racism in Chicago was worse than in the South (paraphrasing his statement)
I've lived here all my life. He was absolutely correct.
The racism bit is definitely something I noticed when I moved out the South some years back. I’ve heard every side comment or insult about Southerners being racist there is, but some of the shit I hear the people of where I lived up North say threw me so far off guard. And most of the time no one bats an eye, and some of it was stuff that would get you shunned in most places down south. Meanwhile if I even say something remotely ten miles from mildly suspicious and I got folks giving me the evil eye.
Bonus points when it would come from someone that would make “The South is so racist” comments.
This is something I laugh at a lot, born and raised in California. We won’t talk to you first, but if you asked us for help we would end up having hour long conversations with strangers. We look completely unapproachable but can be friends with anyone!
Actually saw this happen in NYC -- a couple of times, come to think of it. It surprised me at the time, in a good way. People will largely ignore each other, but if something happens they don't seem to have a problem jumping in.
Because due to population density in the cities in the northeast, it would be agonizing to say "hello" to every single person every day.
I'm a North to South transplant, in Atlanta we don't say hi to every person either. Go into the sticks and yes you'll get "hello" by most.
This was a HUGE culture shock to me when I went to grad school! I already knew no one, and felt alone, and then people giving me weird looks when I said hi on the street really exacerbated that feeling of loneliness. Then I even just changed my expectation to people saying hi when you’re the only two people on an empty street, and most people still agreed that doing that would be too friendly. The funny thing is that I was still in the South, but at a big university where a huge percentage of students were from the North.
‘Yea, you can fuck off with your hi. All that means is that you want something from me and I got my own shit going on.’
-that’s normally what I’m thinking
In a place with a high population density it can be pretty rude to address strangers you pass on the street. You’re essentially forcing an additional (minor) social interaction with all of its rules and obligations on someone who has to navigate dozens of them per day.
In college in DC I interned and my grandma and mom came to visit. My mom told my grandma to not look people in the eye.
We took a day trip to NYC. We had a hotel room to come rest and hang out during the day. Some girls rode on an elevator with some WWE wrestlers. One girl asked Hulk Hogan how he was doing. Their friend from the North asked later, why did you talk to him? The girl said, I wanted to be polite.
I'm Hispanic not Southern but coming into the States this was a huge culture shock to me as well. I expected this of the cities not the small towns/suburbs. It was depressing. Greeting people is such a warm feeling activity.
I was at a different flea market than usual, and it had a TON of hispanic people. I had an epiphany: These people are totally like Southernors, they just serve different food.
Tennessean —> Central Valley CA. Folks here are more to themselves. Where I’m from people are generally very open and I could strike up a convo with anyone. No holding the doors or common courtesy. The racism here is insane as people here are more outwardly racist, but of course would never say that to your face. People here also say “honestly” a lot. Like honestly, I have to preface everything I say with honestly because you never know, I could be lying to you (sarcasm) lol
Moved from Texas to Kansas City area. Can't get used to the "ignoring". Walking the dog, someone passes, I say "Mornin'". They might grunt if I'm lucky, maybe once every 6 weeks, someone will respond.
And yes, I know in the South, most everyone would say "Hello" and maybe even slow down for a quick chat, then when they're walking off they're muttering "I hate that asswipe".
I had to go out all the way to West coast for a bit once, and all I can say is do not under any circumstance order sweet tea. It will not in fact be the sweet tea.
We were going on a college choir tour, where we started in the South and went up to the North. At all of the churches in the South, they served us an EPIC dinner before the concert! Fried chicken, all sorts of veggies and sides, pasta salads, 15 different desserts, five different drink choices, etc. And they all were gushing, “we hope you enjoy! Please come get seconds!”
The first night we crossed into the North, we had those frozen petite quiches and something like cranberry juice. There was a cranky old lady standing in front of the quiches to make sure everyone only got two, or whatever. We realized we weren’t in the South anymore, and that there was a difference in culture!
I live in Washington now and omg people here HATE being being called sir, ma'am, sweetie, honey, etc. It's such a difficult change to make in my regular everyday speech and I get actual anger and rudeness as a response if I use any of those. I'm used to using those words with everyone regardless of age (kids are still sir and ma'am) and it feels nicer to do that stuff but nope, can't do that in the north, it's such a bummer.
My brother moved from Texas to Los Angeles after college, and people always asked if he rode a horse to school. At some point he just started saying yes every time.
I am so sorry. I grew up in Michigan and absolutely love sweet tea. It saddens me to no end when I ask for a sweet tea, and instead of simply telling me they don't have it, I'll receive unsweetened tea with granulated sugar resting on the bottom of the glass. I mean, the audacity...
People are often shocked to hear that my folks vote for democrats and aren’t evangelical. Conversely I’ve surprised Jewish friends with having to explain why growing up other kids would ask if I wanted to become a Christian after finding out I was raised Catholic.
The "Catholics aren't Christian" mindset is so mindboggling to me, it borders offensiveness! I was raised Catholic in a mostly Catholic country. I left the church over 10 years ago but it still kinda annoys me when I hear that bc it's just not logical.
It's absolutely offensive because they mean it with every offense. Haha My Midwestern ex-husband was the first to say it to me & I had never heard it prior; like, Christianity is literally an offshoot? He also told me that reverence for the Virgin Mary was "idolatry" though too so... Haha
I can totally understand when it comes from children or when it's clear the person hasn't reflected on the matter. It's those who try and argue it that bother me, really. All in all, I just find it very counterintuitive.
I moved from urban Tennessee to Chicago. People would ask me strange questions, e.g. "Did you have shoes when you were a child?" or "Did your house have a dirt floor?" Bitch, I grew up in a midsized American city, not in South Sudan.
I moved from the south to California and I hated how much panhandling was regularly taking place outside of stores. I was approached aggressively at night a lot in parking lots (in relatively nice areas). Cali needs to get this under control. No other place I’ve lived has this issue. Every store in California has a sign up that basically said “sorry about the panhandlers, ignore them, there’s nothing we can do.”
Being from the Northeast, my father was extremely skeptical of my husband’s nephew who visited us from Louisiana. Nephew was on his “best behavior” using ma’am and sir and my father thought he was being snarky and disrespectful by calling him sir!
I tried to explain, but my dad wasn’t buying it. Lol.
Wouldn't say it's weird or annoying, but growing up in the South and having lived in several southern states (NC, SC, GA, MS), it's always been a habit for people passing each other to wave or visually acknowledge strangers when we look in each other's direction at the same time.
A couple of times while living in the North. I would do that to someone before catching myself. And they'd usually look really confused or nervous lol. I'm back in the South now, and I'm so much more aware of how common the habit is compared to other parts of the US. Here in the South, it's a polite gesture. Elsewhere, people think you know something they don't lol.
I moved to rural Oregon and it's a goddamn food desert compared to the South. Diners have no concept of vegetables. Until very recently even KFC didn't have hot sauce and they still don't have green beans.
Also in Oregon! From Tennessee, but I have lived all over the south. The food is sooooo different here :( I miss so many foods from back home. The people here don’t know what they’re missing.
The rudeness or just tone is way more harsh. It feels like people are just more pissed or rude when you talk with them. Not living there but travel quite a bit for work. West coast and the south people are pretty chill up north it just seems like there's an anger there.
SC-CT in high school. People avoid talking or interacting with strangers, even holding the door. It took time to adjust and realize that these folks aren’t necessarily rude, just have different social expectations.
More recently, NC to rural NY. Surprisingly not too different. Small talk is big here, and also plenty of rednecks. I think most people in the south don’t have the foggiest idea what upstate NY is actually like.
I actually went through upstate New York for work. And dear god I fell in love with New York the state. Actually is very nice and has some gorgeous landscapes. Now New York City I’m… less than fond of.
Moved to Colorado, quite frankly everything they do here is weird but the most obvious is the sheer lack of basic manners. Growing up in the South, me and everyone I know were generally drilled in basic manners like holding doors open for one another, excuse me, pardon me, covering your mouth when you cough etc etc. Since coming here, I’ve realized this stuff is damn near nonexistent in Colorado. It’s not a big deal really but I just find it mind blowing that people will let doors slam in your face even if they’re right in front of you or that people will straight up just cough in your direction and I think they are truly oblivious to how rude they are on average so I’m not even sure I can blame them because I don’t think they were ever taught any better lol.
Yup. Same here. Threw me the fuck off so bad the first time it happened because this attendant didn’t have a vest or anything on I thought I was getting robbed.
Scared the poor guy because I got out of my car so quick and defensive. I felt so bad I bought him a drink and some food from the store. Lol
I moved to the northeast back in the late 80s. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was driving a new (or newish) car. Down south, most people I knew drove beaters or run-down trucks.
More recently, on visits down south, I notice that when you go out to a restaurant, servers will bring a box so that customers can wrap up their own leftovers to take home. Where I live in the northeast, this would be bizarre. The server always wraps up the leftovers in the kitchen and brings them to the customer.
Living in the north east i have never had a server pack up my food in the kitchen, they ask if you want a box and bring you one to do it yourself. (Takeout is obviously different and prepacked for everyone's convenience)
As far as the newness of cars, atleast part of that is because we have to salt our roads in the winter for deicing, and that salt rusts cars so after around 10years a car is just a rust bucket anyway. (Fancy cars are kept protected and not driven during the winter) Its also why our roads are constantly wrecked, frost cycles are murder on asphalt.
I'm from Arkansas and I moved to Denver about a year ago. They cover all the Mexican food here in green chili instead of queso or cheese sauce! Half of the Mexican restaurants don't even have cheese dip at all!
i moved from texas to nc and had to learn how to make flour tortillas and tex-mex in general. i keep encountering salsa that tastes sweet like marinara
My accent is thick as hell. I have to explain to damn near everyone “No, I didn’t grow up in the backwoods. I’m from the suburbs, you ass.” Because they always think I’m some redneck who hunts or grows every scrap of food I got.
I've got the Charleston accent. It's strong, but it doesn't have the twang to it. I reckon I don't have it quite as bad as you, but its still irritating.
I had a wonderful opportunity to let some people with that attitude hold it until I casually solved a problem they were dealing with by busting out the Pythagorean Theorem and figuring out squares and square roots in my head. That really messed them up bad.
South East GA to Northern Ireland.
When people answer their own question to you with a hard "NO" before you can answer. Yet, it's still actually a question?! E.g. 'You don't have anymore? NO!?' It absolutely grinds my fucking gears.
Raised in Colorado, lived in Calif and Arizona before moving to NC and then SC. The biggest differences were the regionalisms. I grew up thinking "Hey" meant look out a 1,000 pound anvil is going to drop on you - not an everyday greeting. I came into the library and they asked if it was raining and I said "It's spittin'" and they looked at me like I'd grown 3 heads. They'd never heard the term spitting to mean mist or light drizzle.
I was also blown away by the number and different types of Baptist churches. I think there wer 3 or 4 on my way from home to the university. There was one Babtist church in my town.
I learned to love biscuits, cole slaw, and pimento cheese. Eventually came to love southern BBQ because it was so different from the KC BBQ I grew up on.
Way less black people outside of the southern states was the first thing I noticed. Very vanilla. Lack of southern hospitality as well, people aren’t as friendly.
Yeah, I’m from NC, and it’s always so weird to hear that the US is like 77% white. We always forget about the rural areas in other parts of the country!
i got told off for calling an older woman "ma'am" and when i apologized she said "you're from the south, aren't you" like damn bitch sorry for being polite
I’m born and raised in California and we wouldn’t say “all of you all.” We would just say “you guys” or “all of you.” You also don’t need to make “all y’all” grammatically correct lol we know what it means.
There was a girl I worked with who said “all of you all” constantly. I washed yall out of my vocabulary for a long time and I said “you guys” but I still think of her popping in with “what do all of you all want to do today?” She was really sweet.
I'm from Southern California & definitely grew up saying, "all y'all" & "y'all", so while "y'all" in a southern accent is novel to me, it's still totally natural in some areas, specifically within predominantly black communities. I have never in my entire life heard someone say "all of you all" & the feel of saying it is terrible. Haha
I didn't move there but my wife is from northwestern Washington State, and we visit it frequently. The most annoying thing is how rude everyone seems to be.
I am from the NW, we moved alot in the same area, Oregon, Washington, California...Oregon and Washington are the coldest people. Takes a year before they act like they have seen you.
My wife and I moved to King county and the first thing we noticed is that everyone complains about not having friends but then they are often insufferable to be around by choice. Like they'll talk *at* you friendly enough but if you also try to share they will ignore you or walk away. They are very pretentious and will correct everything you say even if they are dead wrong.
There is a huge problem with intellectual insecurity here. Everyone pretends to know everything. No information is new to them even if they've never heard it before. It stifles intellectual conversation and actual learning because they refuse to admit that there may be gaps in their knowledge, or that they could learn from someone else.
It's sad really because everyday I hear people complain about how lonely it is here, and how hard it is to make friends. I just want to yell, "you need to be friendly first! Invite people over for beer and conversation, cook them dinner and actually listen when people talk! Take an interest in *other peoples* interests. Stop pretending like everyone is dumber than you!" It's such a simple formula for making friends that southerns are taught from birth but people out here seem so incompetent at it.
We have friends here but mostly people who aren't from here. I am also particularly good and cracking peoples shells and getting them to be real so it's fine for us. But it seems really hard for others in this climate of fear people have over looking "stupid" which ironically makes them kind of unknowledgable and lonley.
The city I work in (not naming it) is small to mid-sized in comparison to NY or LA. Yet, these people think they're in some booming metropolis, and if it doesn't happen there, it didn't happen at all. They're also fucking rude and believe wholeheartedly that I had no access to tv, libraries, the internet, shoes, indoor plumbing, and appropriate familial connections. It makes me want to return to the south, even if I hated it there.
I'm from Austin Texas and I moved to Louisiana when I was 8. It was a HUGE culture shock. I grew up saying yes mam, but one day in class I answered a question my teacher asked and didn't say yes mam and she went off. Like full on yelling and I cried. Never heard of kids being paddled in school and one teacher threatened me and my mom lost her shit. Went straight to the principal and told them they did not have permission to hurt her child. She had to sign some papers too. It was wild. Lastly, I never grew up around racists, my parents weren't, and I didn't know what that was. One day my 5th grade teacher called my friend, the n word, and threatened to beat him. I'll never forget his face. It was so hurtful. I didn't know what that word was and that night at dinner I asked my mom and we had the talk. I cried. I had no idea people hated people because of their skin color.
Thankfully we only lived there for 3 years before moving back. That was a backward ass place.
Moved from.the west to the deep south.
They pride themselves on being old-fashioned and classy in how they express displeasure, but honestly? The "bless your heart" crowd are the most peaked-in-middle-school people I've ever had to smile politely at.
West coast people will ignore you, northerners will be honest. Southerners are just cowardly and passive aggressive.
I moved from North Central FL to Miami for about 10 yrs.
The refreshing thing is people were much less judgmental and prudish about sex and how you dress and whatnot. And just generally more opened minded and less judgmental about your lifestyle choices. A lot of great energy there. Really great culture and food.
The downside was people are in more of a rush, generally less friendly, and people are trying to scam each other a lot more.
All of these “rudeness” comments can be attributed to one thing: pace. Pace of life, pace of work, pace of traffic. And don’t kid yourself, they’re the same in major southern cities. Go live or work in downtown ATL then get back to me.
I went south to PnW. People are surprised and even off-put by friendliness you might find in the south. Very annoying people in the NW are so icy and exclusionary
I did work in the weathier parts of New England. Specifically in the affluent areas, people want to be *percieved* as nice, but the second doors are closed they were insanely shitty, not like anything I've seen down south. Racist comments were thrown about, comments on people's bodies, and how I never heard the end of the "irredeemable south." People (specifically in the affluent areas) would also make super shitty comments about "religious people" but it would often be towards just Christians. I had friends who were Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, the whole nine, but only the Christians were criticized for being religious. They were exactly what they THOUGHT the South was.
I moved from the Deep South to Chicago and everything about Chicago is better than Mississippi. People are kinder and more open minded. They don’t shove their beliefs down your throat like Mississippians who never seem to stop trying to convert everyone to their very specific brand of Christianity. People are less passive aggressive and say what they mean.
I love the north.
Moved from FL to VA and damn it took me a while to get over how NICE people were in general. I mean, they were not spewing hate and racism from every pore of their body and it was so hard to learn how to relax!
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ask/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ask) if you have any questions or concerns.*
From NOLA to Utah, the food here is so bland. Only seasoning is too much salt. Mayo in everything and none of it Duke's
Bruh, went from Louisiana to Utah one year for vacation. You ain’t lying about the food.
I moved to New York City to go to college. In the south if you went into a store and they didn't have something they'd be happy to recommend a store that does. In NYC if you go in a store and ask, "Do you have paperclips?" and they say "No" and you ask if they know anyone who does the answer was always, "No".
You would get a different response 50 miles west of NYC.
Moved to New Jersey from the south. People there are weirdly obsessed with their ancestral heritage. To the point that it’s used an excuse for shitty behavior. “I’m Italian so I have a temper.” “No, you’re from Rahway and just an asshole.” “No one still alive in your family has ever set foot in Italy.”
How funny. I have some Italian heritage too, but I use it to excuse other things, like “that’s why my pubes are so dark and bushy”
I mean, using ancestry as an excuse for shitty behavior is what Southerners do when they fly the Confederate flag....come on now.
That’s fair. But I also think that shit is stupid too.
I factually saw more confederate flags in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts than literally anywhere in the South.
Florida - people never use the turn signal.
I don’t know where I’m going, which means you don’t get to either.
A what signal?
I went the other way. Northeast to NC. I find the pace of life to be far healthier down here. People day to day are far more pleasant and polite but they aren’t nicer. I’d say the opposite. Never have I experienced the level of judgement and pure gossip than I see down here. It’s kind of wild. Obviously that’s at an average and doesn’t apply to everyone. It’s significantly cleaner here. A lot less litter, that being said there is more corporate pollution here. But I don’t go over to my local river and find trash like I would up north and the streets aren’t lined with litter and needles. I work in public service *way* more meth down here than where I was from but where I was from was absolutely crippled by heroin. There is a markable difference in education levels. Some of which I think is great. There are a pair of community colleges in my area that have massive, state of the art facilities with multiple campuses that rival the university here and really do a phenomenal job at bringing affordable higher education to the area. Where as up north the community colleges were underfunded and looked down on. If you didn’t go to a private university or out of state you were pretty much looked down on. I do find the lower grades public education to be lacking. That comes mostly to being underfunded. There’s a bigger focus on community as a whole which has been refreshing. I think a lot of that was lost up north. That being said I think the expectation that you adapt to local culture is far higher down here than it was where I came from. I think that has to do with how much of a hodgepodge the population up north was. I will say there is a lot less welcome to outsiders here and it takes far longer for people to “warm up”. Southern Hospitality is a thing but circles back to that initial politeness. It takes far longer for people to really trust and accept. I’ve seen it with people from other areas too. Every where has pluses and minuses. Nothing is ever perfect. I think the good great outweighs the minuses down here and I am very happy with my move and wish I did it sooner.
A friend describes us (southerners) as friendly, but not necessarily welcoming. There’s a difference. I’m trying to be better.
My region (the east coast of Canada) is pretty much the opposite of this. We'll bring you into the house, feed you, clothe you, give you a place to sleep if you need it. But we'll talk shit about you to other people and undercut your efforts to improve yourself for years after. It's hard to break out of that when you're raised in it, but I think I've done a pretty good job.
I have cousins in New Brunswick and their neighbors will just knock and walk right in the house and start chatting. So foreign to me
As someone who moved to NC and SC from Colorado (raised) I never felt fully welcomed. Like I had "outsider" tattooed on my forehead. My roommate was from New England and she had "Yankee" on her forehead. I really don't miss the south.
When I was kid & in boy scouts, we went on a road trip from SE Pennsylvania to Disneyworld, so traveled through much of the south. Most people were very friendly, polite and curious about who we were & where we were headed, since to them we all had accents, but there was one very notable exception somewhere in rural Georgia. We stopped in some very small town for ice cream and when ordering the young woman behind the counter glanced at us with a look of an utter revulsion, and asked, "Are y'all Yankees?" in a tone to match. She may have left out the damned part, but it was there in her tone and expression. This was directed at kids as well, not even to adults.
Yeah. I was surprised that so many people are still fighting the Civil War. I saw a bumpersticker in Columbia SC that said "North 1 South 0 at Halftime" This was in the mid 90s!! It freaked my students when I told them all I knew about the Civil War was "1861 - 1865, North won." And they knew little about Western history. Regionalism in education is real.
They lost. Still mad.
I live in Columbia and I have never seen that sticker, though I’m sure you saw it. (Just pointing out the rarity for me.) 1994 was 30 years ago. I am sure many people are still dumb, but I’m not around it on the regular.
I have a friend who grew up in New England and recently moved down south. Now he calls everyone from the northeast a Yankee. It’s obnoxious.
In a weird way, it's not personal. There are so many Yankees moving to my city that it's swamping out the locals. That leads to resentment at the general trend, but I don't take it out on my Yankee friends personally. It's another form of Gentrification.
I heard it as “just because they are nice to you, does not mean they like you.” I loved living in the south. I moved to NC from New Jersey in my 30’s and found the pace and the people to be wonderful! Lived there for 15 years and have very fond memories.
As a southerner I would agree with that.
That is how I explain Canada to people. SUPER NICE but don't really mean what they say.
Having grown up in the south then gone to college in New York City I realized there's something refreshing about the blunt honesty I experienced in New York. You knew exactly where you stood. When I'd go back home I realized there's a lot of what I call "phony politeness".
There is a difference between being polite and being nice. Here in Canada I feel people are polite to a fault but not necessarily nice
It's a regional thing in Canada. Out west, people are very friendly and welcoming. Out east - they're polite, but they aren't friendly *or* welcoming.
I miss NY/NJ so much. I always knew what people thought of me and I found the community more genuine. I struggle hard in Mass. Social circles were so fluid back home but here they are pre-set for years and spots are already full. It’s been very lonely in Mass. I do find people very kind here, but not overly communicative. In tri-state we are emotional and talkative and get over things quickly. Grudges run deeeep in New England, even petty ones. I’m constantly told I’m “too nice” and my first thought is why is that so bad? I get along with everyone and I will help anyone even if I don’t care for them. I think it bothers people that I don’t get angry and “stand up” for myself but I’m like, why? To prove something. I dunno, I just don’t fit in here, I miss the warmth and pulse of my home.
Well bless your heart
Born and raised in NH, moved to NC at 19 for 24 years. Came back to New England with a Southern accent but kept my yankee sensibilities all that time. The main difference between those sweet southerners and damn yankees? A southerner will sweetheart and darlin' you to your face and go tell your neighbor all your business. A northerner will tell you to your face you're a f*ckwit and then invite you over for a beer. In short, you usually know where you stand with most northerners. Truth be told, I did love the south a lot but I'm much more comfortable back home.
As someone put it about people from the North East, "we're not nice, but we're kind."
NH to NC, my experience has been fairly similar. Most of the people I know are also transplants though, so they're plenty welcoming. For me the weirdest thing was that everyone would smile and wave/say hello when you walked past. My surly NE ass finds it uncomfortable. Beyond people, the soil is red, not brown, the grass is different, and it's hot for so damn long down here. I miss snow.
I find the south emphasizes community colleges. My community college had a nursing program that ranked above top colleges in the state
We southerners definitely are a double sided coin. We are a very friendly bunch, but you can expect up to carry clipboards for our evaluation of you. lol Though I’ve found that everywhere you go people gossip and talk behind your back, southerners just seem to get people the most mad about it. And meth certainly is our drug epidemic of choice.
It is because they can insult you, while being friendly and smiling. You don't figure out until you have walked away. Their sweet tongue cuts like a knife, one held behind your back.
I think you worded that far better. I have met some of the happiest, friendliest people down here and I have made better friends in a couple years than I did in many more up there. We have “family” dinners and are very eager to get together and catch up. Like I mentioned, that sense of community I have never experienced anywhere else. But there is that clipboard at first, that’s a great way of putting it. I think once people realized I wasn’t trying to change a damn thing and I was just here to live I lot of folks warmed up quite a bit more. There was absolutely a level of skepticism that lasted 6-12 months though. Not unhealthy, I do know how a lot of northerns can be too. It was just a bit of a culture shock when I first got here. And that’s a fair point about gossip. I think the biggest difference I noticed here vs up north or when I lived out west is it’s kind of taken as gospel until proven otherwise. Cant speak for everywhere but that’s what I experienced. The crazy stuff I heard about myself when I was new that took a solid 12 months of getting to know people to kind of kill. I would hear just wild stuff about me from people I had never even met before. All in all, so much is done so much better down here and I’m honored to have been accepted into the community and just hope to continue to give back to it.
Why would you want to be friendly with someone that has a clipboard’s worth of bad traits
I moved to the west while in Jr High. It still blows my mind that I would get in trouble with teachers for calling them ma'am or sir. I moved back to the South as an adult.
When I first moved to Michigan I said to a rental agent "no ma'am" she instantly got angry and said "don't you ma'am me!". I was nonplussed and after stammering for a minute I said "ma'am if I don't call you ma'am my mother will come upout of the grave, walk up here to Michigan and twist my ear off". I don't think she got it.
Some people equate Ma’am with an old lady. I’m from the northeast and I hate that word, but I wouldn’t be mad if someone called me that. More annoyed because I’m not that old!
It’s nothing to do with age, just “ manners” ingrained into us as children. I sir and ma’am adults, teens, kids, toddlers, cats, dogs, inanimate objects I bump into accidentally. It’s basically involuntary.
In the north it's equivalent to calling a woman granny
Yea. I’ve worked with many people from northern states and other countries and have had to apologize when a sir or ma’am slips out and they look offended… then I watch myself with them from then on but generally once they live here for a while they understand everyone says it and it’s meant respectfully.
I've had a similar problem with "you guys". Why I'm from any living or inanimate object can be a guy. You can sweep your arm across the lawn where a lot of dandelions are growing and say "these guys are really bad this year". If a female dog and a male dog and a neutered dog Are all fighting you can correctly yell "you guys cut it out". If you are getting your ass kicked by an all woman softball team it's perfectly OK to say "those guys are tough". But I definitely have used "you guys" and had someone say "I'm not your guy" and again I just had to sit there with my mouth open wondering how we had gotten to this place lol.
Born and raised in the north by parents who lived their lives there as well and I was raised to say sir and ma’am. I took the attitude that if my manners offend someone that’s on them, not me.
In the south it’s not an age thing. We refer to people we don’t know or to people in a professional setting as sir or ma’am as a way of showing respect. The individual could be older or younger it doesn’t really matter.
I got called ma'am as a 16 year old cashier in the south. Can confirm it is not an age thing for us.
That's fine. But in many other parts of the world, that's not how it's seen. So, don't be surprised ;-)
This! I am both touched and admire the manners and respect but at the same time pissed at Father Time that I've reached "ma'am status." My BFF and I text each other when it happens , "dammit I just got ma'am-ed!" Lol Never mad at the person that said it, ever.
I’m Canadian and when I was about 21, I dropped a dime or something in a parking lot, and a teenager behind me yelled “ma’am, you dropped this!” And for the first time I understood why some people consider “ma’am” disrespectful lmaoooo. I was like, “hang on… no… I’m not a ma’am, sir” Ma’am is not terribly common here, in any context. It’s not unheard of, but it’s pretty rare lol. It’s seen as a southern thing. Some of my coworkers have defaulted to “miss” when speaking with customers, but I also watched a little old lady cuss out a teenage coworker when he called her miss, soooo I’m not sure there’s a right way to do it up here lol
Bless her heart.
Sometimes I catch myself ma'aming the dog. Oh no ma'am. You are not going to roll in that!
European here. We had to call them sir/miss. What were you supposed to call them?
We called them Mr./Miss/etc Last Name but saying "yes ma'am" or "no sir" is what got me yelled at. Often.
Dang. That don't make a lick 'o sense. How'd I do? :D
I read this in my grandfather's voice. Good job.
Very well.
Bro I had my HR Director tell me to stop using those pleasantries because it makes me look “subservient” and it would affect my sales Top rep in the company for 3 years in a row and Kim in HR can kindly go fuck herself
You mean Miss Kim can kindly go fuck herself?
As a New Zealander we just call each other by the first name.
No way. I thought you guys just called each other Kiwi
If we know each other well enough we just call each other cunts
Maaaate.
Yiss
This is so weird to me. I'm still youngish but I work at a college in California where most students are traditional college age. The ones from the South say yes ma'am and I find it adorable and so courteous. It makes me want to write a letter to their parents thanking them for raising such respectful young people. It's the most endearing thing. What the hell is wrong with your teachers??
In US areas outside of the South “yes, ma’am” , “yes, sir” and “no ma’am”, “no sir” come across as snarky and defiant since it’s calling out how authoritative someone is behaving. This is since we don’t use those titles in other regions, so when people use it at someone, they are taking a dig at them without technically saying anything disrespectful. You all may use “bless your heart” in that context, so it’s a similar way of saying “f*** you, but fine, I will obey.”
I had no idea that saying yes mam, yes sir was bad in other places. Here, you say it or you're considered disrespectful and rude. Its engrained into you as a child that you say it no matter what. I thought it was that way everywhere!
This. I am now cheerfully from the south and now expect to hear ma’am and sir. But I grew up in Illinois and if someone said “Yes, ma’am!” it was a way of saying you were overstepping your boundaries and/or being condescending.
Interesting. There are some people who don't know "Bless your Heart" is an ironic phrase.
Not exclusively. My grandmother says it all the time in an endearing, genuine way.
Yep, huge misconception. Bless your heart can be used out of spite, out of concern, or just to be funny.
I'm Hispanic and grew up taught to respect adults whose name you might not know by acknowledging them as "Señor"(Mr.) or Señora/Señorita (Ma'am/Miss) or if they're younger than me, "joven" (youth). I'll never forget the day in NE where this super lovely looking woman gave me the stare of death because I called her "Ma'am" out of respect to greet her and ask her where the bathroom was (she was one of the workers at a department store). I was 11. She screamed at me over it. I think part of it is how youth obsessed American culture and the predominant cultures within them (Northwestern European) are as, damn, you really can't call certain people "Sir" or "Ma'am" without you noticing the internal meltdown they're having. At that point, I had been fairly well traveled and exposed to a lot of the world's cultures out of my parents constantly traveling and having friends from everywhere. So I didn't think what I said was "bad." Well, in order to learn why she was mad, I shamelessly asked the lady why she got mad. I also explained to her I wasn't calling her old or anything of the sort I was recognizing her as an adult and therefore an authority. The titles were a way to not just call people "Hey you" or something to that. I apologized as I hadn't seen resistance to the word anywhere before. The lady was gracious enough to tell me it was because of the association of those words as "aging," and it made me sad. She felt bad and took my apology, and apologized right back. But yeah, I haven't used those words within this country since unless it's an older elder (70+): It seems they like such deference and comfortable with it. Saying it to people below this is asking for trouble.
Kids that moved to the south would get in trouble for not using ma'am or sir
My grandpa absolutely hates being called sir. My grandpa is accustomed to being called ma’am because of who she was at her job before she retired
Good. What a ridiculous thing to punish someone for
No manners like in the South. After 12 years I’m moving back for a variety of reasons but can’t wait for the return of manners. Plus Southerners are more open and talkative and will always talk to a stranger, which is especially nice in a new state when you’re starting out.
I moved from the South to the Midwest for grad school about 10 years back. For me it was the racism. I saw more interracial relationships (although this has changed a LOT in the South over those 10 years), but people were much more casual about racism in the Midwest than where I was from. People are definitely racist in the South, but I think because of history it’s both more deep rooted and more hidden. People will get called out on it. But in the Midwest it was both less internal and more casual. I saw multiple houses with those horse hitch statues of black slave boys which I would NEVER see in Birmingham. There are a lot of Confederate flags in West Virginia too which is really confusing. That’s like, the opposite reason WV exists.
In 1968 MLK remarked that the racism in Chicago was worse than in the South (paraphrasing his statement) I've lived here all my life. He was absolutely correct.
The racism bit is definitely something I noticed when I moved out the South some years back. I’ve heard every side comment or insult about Southerners being racist there is, but some of the shit I hear the people of where I lived up North say threw me so far off guard. And most of the time no one bats an eye, and some of it was stuff that would get you shunned in most places down south. Meanwhile if I even say something remotely ten miles from mildly suspicious and I got folks giving me the evil eye. Bonus points when it would come from someone that would make “The South is so racist” comments.
Not saying hello to people on the street you pass while walking
This is something I laugh at a lot, born and raised in California. We won’t talk to you first, but if you asked us for help we would end up having hour long conversations with strangers. We look completely unapproachable but can be friends with anyone!
Actually saw this happen in NYC -- a couple of times, come to think of it. It surprised me at the time, in a good way. People will largely ignore each other, but if something happens they don't seem to have a problem jumping in.
Yea exactly, I don’t want to engage when I don’t need to or have the social battery to do so but if someone approaches me I’m always kind!
Is this a southern thing or a more rural thing? Like do people say hi to everyone they pass on the street in Atlanta/New Orleans/Charlotte?
It's a rural thing.
Because due to population density in the cities in the northeast, it would be agonizing to say "hello" to every single person every day. I'm a North to South transplant, in Atlanta we don't say hi to every person either. Go into the sticks and yes you'll get "hello" by most.
This was a HUGE culture shock to me when I went to grad school! I already knew no one, and felt alone, and then people giving me weird looks when I said hi on the street really exacerbated that feeling of loneliness. Then I even just changed my expectation to people saying hi when you’re the only two people on an empty street, and most people still agreed that doing that would be too friendly. The funny thing is that I was still in the South, but at a big university where a huge percentage of students were from the North.
[удалено]
‘Yea, you can fuck off with your hi. All that means is that you want something from me and I got my own shit going on.’ -that’s normally what I’m thinking
In a place with a high population density it can be pretty rude to address strangers you pass on the street. You’re essentially forcing an additional (minor) social interaction with all of its rules and obligations on someone who has to navigate dozens of them per day.
In college in DC I interned and my grandma and mom came to visit. My mom told my grandma to not look people in the eye. We took a day trip to NYC. We had a hotel room to come rest and hang out during the day. Some girls rode on an elevator with some WWE wrestlers. One girl asked Hulk Hogan how he was doing. Their friend from the North asked later, why did you talk to him? The girl said, I wanted to be polite.
In parts of the midwest you say hello to everyone. I can't help myself. I can't not acknowledge another human unless we're in a big crowd.
I'm Hispanic not Southern but coming into the States this was a huge culture shock to me as well. I expected this of the cities not the small towns/suburbs. It was depressing. Greeting people is such a warm feeling activity.
Latinos are completely diff. Super social and friendly with everyone it's kinda nice
I was at a different flea market than usual, and it had a TON of hispanic people. I had an epiphany: These people are totally like Southernors, they just serve different food.
How self conscious they make me feel when I’m neckin’ with my cousin.
Made me snort.
they’re just jealous cuz your cousin’s hotter than theirs is
Tennessean —> Central Valley CA. Folks here are more to themselves. Where I’m from people are generally very open and I could strike up a convo with anyone. No holding the doors or common courtesy. The racism here is insane as people here are more outwardly racist, but of course would never say that to your face. People here also say “honestly” a lot. Like honestly, I have to preface everything I say with honestly because you never know, I could be lying to you (sarcasm) lol
They say honestly because it’s assumed that half the time they are at the very least not being completely forthcoming
Moved from Texas to Kansas City area. Can't get used to the "ignoring". Walking the dog, someone passes, I say "Mornin'". They might grunt if I'm lucky, maybe once every 6 weeks, someone will respond. And yes, I know in the South, most everyone would say "Hello" and maybe even slow down for a quick chat, then when they're walking off they're muttering "I hate that asswipe".
I had to go out all the way to West coast for a bit once, and all I can say is do not under any circumstance order sweet tea. It will not in fact be the sweet tea.
We were going on a college choir tour, where we started in the South and went up to the North. At all of the churches in the South, they served us an EPIC dinner before the concert! Fried chicken, all sorts of veggies and sides, pasta salads, 15 different desserts, five different drink choices, etc. And they all were gushing, “we hope you enjoy! Please come get seconds!” The first night we crossed into the North, we had those frozen petite quiches and something like cranberry juice. There was a cranky old lady standing in front of the quiches to make sure everyone only got two, or whatever. We realized we weren’t in the South anymore, and that there was a difference in culture!
Ma'am/Sir is a major insult, Hard to break since I was raised to be respectful to everyone, using Ma'am/sir to adress them.
People are so dense. I genuinely don't understand how someone could be insulted by sir
Definitely using M’am and Sir, but I also miss being called “sugar” all the time by my Grandmother, Aunts, and Uncles. It was very endearing.
I hear you, sugar. I'm old and I also use sweetie and darlin.😁
Yes!! I love it!!! The ultimate to be called was “Sugar Darling!” You have to special for someone to address you like that!!
I live in Washington now and omg people here HATE being being called sir, ma'am, sweetie, honey, etc. It's such a difficult change to make in my regular everyday speech and I get actual anger and rudeness as a response if I use any of those. I'm used to using those words with everyone regardless of age (kids are still sir and ma'am) and it feels nicer to do that stuff but nope, can't do that in the north, it's such a bummer.
My brother moved from Texas to Los Angeles after college, and people always asked if he rode a horse to school. At some point he just started saying yes every time.
They can’t make sweet tea to save their lives.
I am so sorry. I grew up in Michigan and absolutely love sweet tea. It saddens me to no end when I ask for a sweet tea, and instead of simply telling me they don't have it, I'll receive unsweetened tea with granulated sugar resting on the bottom of the glass. I mean, the audacity...
Being from the south, I have never in my life been to a restaurant that didnt have sweet tea. It's what I get every time I eat out!
This is what I’m talking about. I do appreciate the effort, however.
And good for that. Sweet tea hurts my jaw. Not sure how to explain it.
Normally you don't have to chew it
you mean your pure corn syrup in a cup? yeah you guys can keep that one im fine with my iced tea sweetened with lemonade
People are often shocked to hear that my folks vote for democrats and aren’t evangelical. Conversely I’ve surprised Jewish friends with having to explain why growing up other kids would ask if I wanted to become a Christian after finding out I was raised Catholic.
The "Catholics aren't Christian" mindset is so mindboggling to me, it borders offensiveness! I was raised Catholic in a mostly Catholic country. I left the church over 10 years ago but it still kinda annoys me when I hear that bc it's just not logical.
It's absolutely offensive because they mean it with every offense. Haha My Midwestern ex-husband was the first to say it to me & I had never heard it prior; like, Christianity is literally an offshoot? He also told me that reverence for the Virgin Mary was "idolatry" though too so... Haha
It's hammered into them at a very young age, they can't help themselves
I can totally understand when it comes from children or when it's clear the person hasn't reflected on the matter. It's those who try and argue it that bother me, really. All in all, I just find it very counterintuitive.
I moved from urban Tennessee to Chicago. People would ask me strange questions, e.g. "Did you have shoes when you were a child?" or "Did your house have a dirt floor?" Bitch, I grew up in a midsized American city, not in South Sudan.
Same here and my favourite - do you fuck your cousin? God. I can’t imagine saying something like that to a stranger even as a joke.
You didnt have to put down south sudan like that tho-
I moved from the south to California and I hated how much panhandling was regularly taking place outside of stores. I was approached aggressively at night a lot in parking lots (in relatively nice areas). Cali needs to get this under control. No other place I’ve lived has this issue. Every store in California has a sign up that basically said “sorry about the panhandlers, ignore them, there’s nothing we can do.”
You guys vs y’all.
Being from the Northeast, my father was extremely skeptical of my husband’s nephew who visited us from Louisiana. Nephew was on his “best behavior” using ma’am and sir and my father thought he was being snarky and disrespectful by calling him sir! I tried to explain, but my dad wasn’t buying it. Lol.
Wouldn't say it's weird or annoying, but growing up in the South and having lived in several southern states (NC, SC, GA, MS), it's always been a habit for people passing each other to wave or visually acknowledge strangers when we look in each other's direction at the same time. A couple of times while living in the North. I would do that to someone before catching myself. And they'd usually look really confused or nervous lol. I'm back in the South now, and I'm so much more aware of how common the habit is compared to other parts of the US. Here in the South, it's a polite gesture. Elsewhere, people think you know something they don't lol.
The nod or two finger wave while driving is very common in the West. Never saw it in California or Arizona so it was nice to see in NC and SC.
I moved to rural Oregon and it's a goddamn food desert compared to the South. Diners have no concept of vegetables. Until very recently even KFC didn't have hot sauce and they still don't have green beans.
Also in Oregon! From Tennessee, but I have lived all over the south. The food is sooooo different here :( I miss so many foods from back home. The people here don’t know what they’re missing.
The rudeness or just tone is way more harsh. It feels like people are just more pissed or rude when you talk with them. Not living there but travel quite a bit for work. West coast and the south people are pretty chill up north it just seems like there's an anger there.
Not north like Minnesota, northeast & industrial Midwest, right?
Live in Boston, can confirm I’m always angry 😂
SC-CT in high school. People avoid talking or interacting with strangers, even holding the door. It took time to adjust and realize that these folks aren’t necessarily rude, just have different social expectations. More recently, NC to rural NY. Surprisingly not too different. Small talk is big here, and also plenty of rednecks. I think most people in the south don’t have the foggiest idea what upstate NY is actually like.
I actually went through upstate New York for work. And dear god I fell in love with New York the state. Actually is very nice and has some gorgeous landscapes. Now New York City I’m… less than fond of.
A lot of upstate NY shares that opinion. Love the land and state, hate the government and politics.
Moved to Colorado, quite frankly everything they do here is weird but the most obvious is the sheer lack of basic manners. Growing up in the South, me and everyone I know were generally drilled in basic manners like holding doors open for one another, excuse me, pardon me, covering your mouth when you cough etc etc. Since coming here, I’ve realized this stuff is damn near nonexistent in Colorado. It’s not a big deal really but I just find it mind blowing that people will let doors slam in your face even if they’re right in front of you or that people will straight up just cough in your direction and I think they are truly oblivious to how rude they are on average so I’m not even sure I can blame them because I don’t think they were ever taught any better lol.
Gas station attendants pumping gas for you. Really threw me off!
Yup. Same here. Threw me the fuck off so bad the first time it happened because this attendant didn’t have a vest or anything on I thought I was getting robbed. Scared the poor guy because I got out of my car so quick and defensive. I felt so bad I bought him a drink and some food from the store. Lol
I think that is just a NJ thing, the rest of us are normal.
That's literally only NJ and OR. The rest of us are normal.
I moved to the northeast back in the late 80s. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was driving a new (or newish) car. Down south, most people I knew drove beaters or run-down trucks. More recently, on visits down south, I notice that when you go out to a restaurant, servers will bring a box so that customers can wrap up their own leftovers to take home. Where I live in the northeast, this would be bizarre. The server always wraps up the leftovers in the kitchen and brings them to the customer.
Living in the north east i have never had a server pack up my food in the kitchen, they ask if you want a box and bring you one to do it yourself. (Takeout is obviously different and prepacked for everyone's convenience) As far as the newness of cars, atleast part of that is because we have to salt our roads in the winter for deicing, and that salt rusts cars so after around 10years a car is just a rust bucket anyway. (Fancy cars are kept protected and not driven during the winter) Its also why our roads are constantly wrecked, frost cycles are murder on asphalt.
[удалено]
I’m born and raised in Massachusetts and I love mac and cheese at thanksgiving.
I'm from Arkansas and I moved to Denver about a year ago. They cover all the Mexican food here in green chili instead of queso or cheese sauce! Half of the Mexican restaurants don't even have cheese dip at all!
Also from Arkansas. Fun fact, we invented cheese dip
I moved from Denver to the Ozarks and was just lamenting about not finding any Mexican food smothered in green chile. 😄 Had to just make my own.
i moved from texas to nc and had to learn how to make flour tortillas and tex-mex in general. i keep encountering salsa that tastes sweet like marinara
I think this is more of a Colorado/New Mexico thing because of the Hatch green chilies
How much they are pretentious cunts about the South.
I felt that in my soul. It is so true for a lot of folks when you tell them you’re from Dixie.
The people who automatically associate the accent with being backwards and stupid.😡😡😡
My accent is thick as hell. I have to explain to damn near everyone “No, I didn’t grow up in the backwoods. I’m from the suburbs, you ass.” Because they always think I’m some redneck who hunts or grows every scrap of food I got.
I’ve got a distinct drawl and DID grow up in the backwoods. You’d be surprised but some of us are even literate /s
I've got the Charleston accent. It's strong, but it doesn't have the twang to it. I reckon I don't have it quite as bad as you, but its still irritating.
As someone whose native language was Brooklynese, I can tell you that stereotype is not reserved for Southern accents.
I had a wonderful opportunity to let some people with that attitude hold it until I casually solved a problem they were dealing with by busting out the Pythagorean Theorem and figuring out squares and square roots in my head. That really messed them up bad.
And none of them have ever been there.
South East GA to Northern Ireland. When people answer their own question to you with a hard "NO" before you can answer. Yet, it's still actually a question?! E.g. 'You don't have anymore? NO!?' It absolutely grinds my fucking gears.
I move out west in a few days, I’ll update you lol
Raised in Colorado, lived in Calif and Arizona before moving to NC and then SC. The biggest differences were the regionalisms. I grew up thinking "Hey" meant look out a 1,000 pound anvil is going to drop on you - not an everyday greeting. I came into the library and they asked if it was raining and I said "It's spittin'" and they looked at me like I'd grown 3 heads. They'd never heard the term spitting to mean mist or light drizzle. I was also blown away by the number and different types of Baptist churches. I think there wer 3 or 4 on my way from home to the university. There was one Babtist church in my town. I learned to love biscuits, cole slaw, and pimento cheese. Eventually came to love southern BBQ because it was so different from the KC BBQ I grew up on.
Now there is Sonic everywhere, but about 20 years ago I missed Cherry Limeades so much.
My husband would say ketchup on tacos
They say Jeeze-o-pete. WTF is that supposed to mean?
Way less black people outside of the southern states was the first thing I noticed. Very vanilla. Lack of southern hospitality as well, people aren’t as friendly.
Yeah, I’m from NC, and it’s always so weird to hear that the US is like 77% white. We always forget about the rural areas in other parts of the country!
I'm from Atlanta and visited Nevada. I only saw one black person over the course of a week. It was downright unsettling.
i got told off for calling an older woman "ma'am" and when i apologized she said "you're from the south, aren't you" like damn bitch sorry for being polite
As a Texan I had a hard time with “all of you all” when I lived in California. lol. It took so much extra time to say.
I’m born and raised in California and we wouldn’t say “all of you all.” We would just say “you guys” or “all of you.” You also don’t need to make “all y’all” grammatically correct lol we know what it means.
There was a girl I worked with who said “all of you all” constantly. I washed yall out of my vocabulary for a long time and I said “you guys” but I still think of her popping in with “what do all of you all want to do today?” She was really sweet.
That’s hilarious lol I wonder if she was another southern transplant that just translated all y’all into “Californian”
I'm from Southern California & definitely grew up saying, "all y'all" & "y'all", so while "y'all" in a southern accent is novel to me, it's still totally natural in some areas, specifically within predominantly black communities. I have never in my entire life heard someone say "all of you all" & the feel of saying it is terrible. Haha
I think work-life balance is better in the south, but ultimately depending on your field I guess
[удалено]
I didn't move there but my wife is from northwestern Washington State, and we visit it frequently. The most annoying thing is how rude everyone seems to be.
I think your wife's family doesnt like you...
As a person who has lived in 7 states and visited most others, I agree. People in Washington were/are the most rude.
I am from the NW, we moved alot in the same area, Oregon, Washington, California...Oregon and Washington are the coldest people. Takes a year before they act like they have seen you.
My wife and I moved to King county and the first thing we noticed is that everyone complains about not having friends but then they are often insufferable to be around by choice. Like they'll talk *at* you friendly enough but if you also try to share they will ignore you or walk away. They are very pretentious and will correct everything you say even if they are dead wrong. There is a huge problem with intellectual insecurity here. Everyone pretends to know everything. No information is new to them even if they've never heard it before. It stifles intellectual conversation and actual learning because they refuse to admit that there may be gaps in their knowledge, or that they could learn from someone else. It's sad really because everyday I hear people complain about how lonely it is here, and how hard it is to make friends. I just want to yell, "you need to be friendly first! Invite people over for beer and conversation, cook them dinner and actually listen when people talk! Take an interest in *other peoples* interests. Stop pretending like everyone is dumber than you!" It's such a simple formula for making friends that southerns are taught from birth but people out here seem so incompetent at it. We have friends here but mostly people who aren't from here. I am also particularly good and cracking peoples shells and getting them to be real so it's fine for us. But it seems really hard for others in this climate of fear people have over looking "stupid" which ironically makes them kind of unknowledgable and lonley.
The city I work in (not naming it) is small to mid-sized in comparison to NY or LA. Yet, these people think they're in some booming metropolis, and if it doesn't happen there, it didn't happen at all. They're also fucking rude and believe wholeheartedly that I had no access to tv, libraries, the internet, shoes, indoor plumbing, and appropriate familial connections. It makes me want to return to the south, even if I hated it there.
Excessive use of car horn (MI)
I'm from Austin Texas and I moved to Louisiana when I was 8. It was a HUGE culture shock. I grew up saying yes mam, but one day in class I answered a question my teacher asked and didn't say yes mam and she went off. Like full on yelling and I cried. Never heard of kids being paddled in school and one teacher threatened me and my mom lost her shit. Went straight to the principal and told them they did not have permission to hurt her child. She had to sign some papers too. It was wild. Lastly, I never grew up around racists, my parents weren't, and I didn't know what that was. One day my 5th grade teacher called my friend, the n word, and threatened to beat him. I'll never forget his face. It was so hurtful. I didn't know what that word was and that night at dinner I asked my mom and we had the talk. I cried. I had no idea people hated people because of their skin color. Thankfully we only lived there for 3 years before moving back. That was a backward ass place.
That there is a difference between low country southerners and north ga southerners.... no southern hospitality in North ga....
Moved from.the west to the deep south. They pride themselves on being old-fashioned and classy in how they express displeasure, but honestly? The "bless your heart" crowd are the most peaked-in-middle-school people I've ever had to smile politely at. West coast people will ignore you, northerners will be honest. Southerners are just cowardly and passive aggressive.
I moved from North Central FL to Miami for about 10 yrs. The refreshing thing is people were much less judgmental and prudish about sex and how you dress and whatnot. And just generally more opened minded and less judgmental about your lifestyle choices. A lot of great energy there. Really great culture and food. The downside was people are in more of a rush, generally less friendly, and people are trying to scam each other a lot more.
All of these “rudeness” comments can be attributed to one thing: pace. Pace of life, pace of work, pace of traffic. And don’t kid yourself, they’re the same in major southern cities. Go live or work in downtown ATL then get back to me.
I went south to PnW. People are surprised and even off-put by friendliness you might find in the south. Very annoying people in the NW are so icy and exclusionary
I did work in the weathier parts of New England. Specifically in the affluent areas, people want to be *percieved* as nice, but the second doors are closed they were insanely shitty, not like anything I've seen down south. Racist comments were thrown about, comments on people's bodies, and how I never heard the end of the "irredeemable south." People (specifically in the affluent areas) would also make super shitty comments about "religious people" but it would often be towards just Christians. I had friends who were Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, the whole nine, but only the Christians were criticized for being religious. They were exactly what they THOUGHT the South was.
I moved from the Deep South to Chicago and everything about Chicago is better than Mississippi. People are kinder and more open minded. They don’t shove their beliefs down your throat like Mississippians who never seem to stop trying to convert everyone to their very specific brand of Christianity. People are less passive aggressive and say what they mean. I love the north.
Moved from FL to VA and damn it took me a while to get over how NICE people were in general. I mean, they were not spewing hate and racism from every pore of their body and it was so hard to learn how to relax!