Re: Dawkins: new book coming out Sept. 22

"Emily" <Emily@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:8j1d955i54od9uqns3160vb4sjlf0m8r2s@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:31:31 -0400, "Evelyn" <evelyn.ruut@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

"Emily" <Emily@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:bfsc955arvif013d8htj64mj4qu6quac8b@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:17:49 -0400, "Evelyn" <evelyn.ruut@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

As you know, I spent some time in the South and I'll never understand
how anyone would want to live there.

Islander

I agree with you. The South is a worthless steaming pile of cow
dung. Reasons people like to live there are as follows:
1. They have "kinfolk" there, and like the Beverly Hillbillies, they
prefer to stick mostly with their "kin".
2. They have a job there and may own a house there.
3. They dont speak english well enough to fit in with normal people.
4. They like deep fried southern cooking and feel more comfortable
being around others who do as well.
5. The humid heat doesnt bother them because they dont like being
outdoors anyway. They would rather sit
in their recliner and watch american style football on tv while
eating potato chips.
6. They would have a hard time driving in a place where recklessness
is discouraged and there are curbs,
frontage roads, etc. to deal with.
7. They would be confused by road signs that say things like "Abrupt
Edge", because their southern
vocabularies are so limited that many would not even include
words like abrupt.
8. They are used to a culture where speaking english in a lazy and
careless manner is admired rather than
looked down upon.
9. Since good old BOYS are in fact boys and not men, they are
actually not mature enough to be able to
handle relocating.

Your comments are over my tolerance limit, John.

Islander, Johns experiences in the South were not good. I know John from
another newsgroup a few years ago. So he comes by his aversion
legitimately.

Must have been something like Ned Beatty's in "Deliverance" to have
caused such an all-encompassing hatred. And he must not have spent
much time in the rest of the country if he thinks sub-standard English
is limited to the South.


True, but it may also have been connected to his personal difficulties at
the time, which were considerable. I might as well state that he was a
caregiver for his mother with Alzheimers in that small town he is
describing, and those were his real impressions. John isn't a bad guy, he
just has an awful impression of the South, and it was real.

To offer a correlating tale, when I lived in a town a few miles from here
(lived there for about 20 years) I knew a couple who had been in business
for many years. They left everything familiar, sold their home and moved
to a small town in the South. The guy was a top notch plumber, he figured
he'd always be able to work.

Well, he figured incorrectly. They had a horrible experience. No one would
do business with them. They couldn't make ANY friends, no matter how they
tried. Everyone in that town was connected to a certain fundamentalist
church, and these folks were Catholics and they were hated for it. The
kids were treated badly in school. They were shunned, essentially. Being
Northerners and being Catholics meant they were people to be hated.

Finally, after a couple of years of hoping and trying, and at great expense,
they sold and moved back to their old town up North. The cold northern
winters were nothing like the prejudiced and narrow minded fundamentalist
mindset one runs into in some of those little southern towns.

Fortunately all worked out well for them, excepting for the very expensive
mistake in imagining that all southerners are just like all people
everywhere. Maybe if they had moved to a larger city, where people from
all over have relocated, they might have had a better experience, but small
towns in the South can be like living in some kind of a horror film. I
happen to know that John's experience was much like that couple's, and we
actually spoke about it in the past.

Finally he got out of there and to prove that it wasn't him, he has had
normal friendships, relationships and connections in his community since
then. Just like the couple I knew......

Now I am not saying that all southerners are like the people they
encountered. But there ARE little towns where everyone is related to
everyone else, they don't want to meet any new people, and they regard all
strangers and newcomers as pariahs..... like forever.

I've only lived in one small town in the South, the one I was born in,
and it didn't fit your description. There was one Catholic family,
who had moved there from somewhere up North, one Jewish family and one
Jewish man who had married a local woman. If there was any prejudice
against any of them, I was unaware of it. Their kids, who were around
my age, were friends of mine, and were popular in school. The adults
took part in community activities and one held elected office.

I'm sorry that John and your friend had such unpleasant experiences in
the South, but I don't believe it's reason to pain the entire region
with such a broad and unflattering brush.

Yes, many of us live here because it's where our kin live, the same
reason many people live wherever they do. Condemning us because we
like deep fried food? Really, that's ridiculous.

The one that really pulls my chain, of course, is the accusation about
our not speaking English well enough to fit in with "normal people".
The South is no different that any other region -- educated people
speak the language well and others cling to the substandard speech of
their families and friends. Believe me, I've spent enough time in New
Jersey to know that we haven't cornered the substandard English
market. The first time I met one of my husband's aunts, everyone was
waiting with bated breath to see how she'd react to me because she had
a big fat prejudice against Southerners and couldn't stand a Southern
accent. She, on the other hand, couldn't speak a complete
grammatically correct sentence. That experience always sort of summed
up regional prejudices to me.

That said, I would very carefully check out a small town anywhere in
this country before I moved there since the many are now apparently
hotbeds of fundamentalist religion.



My father grew up in the South and lived in many places throughout in his early years. All of his friends that I ever met down there were lovely people who treated us well. But I do know for a fact that some people, like the couple I mentioned, have been through the kind of bad experiences John described. But there certainly are nice people everywhere, if you know where to look and how to be a friend yourself.
--

Evelyn

"Even as a mother protects with her life her only child, So with a boundless heart let one cherish all living beings." --Sutta Nipata 1.8

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Interesting Unicef report
    ... :>: The New York Times style guide, for example, prefers Unicef ... John was the one who raised the issue ... Can't you comprehend simple English? ... I think that non-government schools would likely (as in so ...
    (rec.scouting.issues)
  • Mystery of Missing Brookhaven Couple
    ... A lot has happened in the six months since John and Liz Calvert of Brookhaven vanished from Hilton Head Island, ... friends and investigators hope new attention to the case will provide answers. ... After a bustle of activity in the days and week's after the couple's March 3 disappearance - national news coverage, daily press briefings - investigators now report few leads. ...
    (alt.true-crime)
  • Re: How long doe it take to learn to read?
    ... John Holmes wrote: ... >>> In another ng a poster, in making an argument, made the rather ... >>> question is about learning to read not to read and write. ... medieval English speakers when it really ought to take five minutes to ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: May Pang reveals the John Lennon Yoko doesnt want you to know
    ... Donna knows her better...no argument ... >> May and she are friends. ... I'm sure that Donna is basing her feelings on more than ... Might everything John said about it be factual? ...
    (rec.music.beatles)
  • Re: So-called rules
    ... but it is essentially no more than common sense. ... John Lawler is ... Real English has plenty of rules, but it's pretty much of a waste of time ... The reason why your "Jim is equally as strong as John" jars is not because ...
    (alt.usage.english)
Loading