Thanks, yoyobon, it sounds great. I have just placed a request to the library for it.

I read her Stop Dressing Your Six-year Old Like a Skank which was a series of essays. Most of it was pretty funny, and what drew me to it was the title. Finding age appropriate clothing for daughters can be difficult and it amazes me what some parents must allow.

my mom just gave me this book, there is something so wonderfully eccentric about the southerners isn't there? For our friends in other countries: Our countrymen from the southern states are like the kookie old aunt or uncle that every family has, you just gotta love 'em.

deborah, LOL, several of us here are southerners, born and bred.;-) I will look for that book, however.

Two excellent funny books -- so good that I read passages out loud to my DH and friends --

1) Queen of the Turtle Derby by Julia Reed

2) Being Dead is No Excuse -- The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting The Perfect Funeral by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays

Honestly -- the second book is just hilarious -- and comes complete with Southern Funeral recipes ...... a dear friend actually gave me a Devilled Egg Dish because of this book and the chapter about the controversy over Sweet vs. Savory Devilled Eggs ((thats a classic Southern food to take to the bereaved family's home or after-funeral get-together .......))

I had two very dear friends who were "transplated" northerners in the South!

One of their favorite southern words was "precious"......EVERYTHING was precious.....the dress you were wearing, the covered dish you brought to share, and always described with " In't it just prey-yuh-shus!" or " Aren't y'all just prey-yuh-shus!"

Hits me like fingernails on a blackboard!

While this thread is on the subject of "The South" and its kookie inhabitants--Well, I'm South, though not exactly the hound dog/pickup truck stereotype that pops into you "outlander's" minds when you think of us.
However, we do sport some mispronunciations (according to standard English) which are difficult to overcome sometimes. For example, the word pretty. It does tend to come out of Southern mouths as perty. I really can't give the phonetic pronunciation of this but it is NOT er as in fur. It's more like the sound you get when you say brrrr when you're chilly. My daughter has taught her children to correct me if I say this. So "perty" soon, we down here in the South will look, act, and sound just like everybody else, I guess. Too bad.

Thanks, froniga.;-) As you know, there are a great many different accents in the south, as there are folkways. Some have considered these charming....

Different accents as in slow, slower, and slowest?

My brother works internationally with the Gideon Society and once traveled to Marseilles with a man from Brooklyn. When they got back to the U.S., the man told him he had learned two new languages on the trip--French and Hillbilly.

Another time he drawled a word, and his travel buddy told him he had always thought that word only had one syllable. Of course, he (and we) think it is funny.

I have a cookbook titled Da** Yankee in a Southern Kitchen that has some good down-home recipes in it.

As an outsider looking in on this thread I am surprised no one from the South has taken issue with some of the comments raised. Are you all so down-trodden?
If I, coming from the southern half of England had made similar remarks, in however humorous a manner about the speech patterns or 'quaint' ways of my fellow country-men from the North of England, let alone Scotland, Ireland or Wales I would have been shot down and accused of thinking I was superior, snobbish and condescending and they would have been right!
I'll go away and hide now before someone reminds me that they whupped us in 17 something or other. :-)

Downtrodden? Hardly. The title of this thread says it all. When you KNOW who you are, and how valuable, a little teasing doesn't hurt. In a country this big, you really can't avoid it-New Yorkers whose wardrobes are the many shades of black...buttoned-up, thrifty New Englanders, kooky Californians, coffee-addicted, rain-soaked Northwesterners...pick a region and there's a stereotype, usually helped along by TV. Sometimes it goes over the line-right now there is an issue in West Virginia about a movie portrayal that has taken the stereotypes beyond a joke.
The musicality of the "Southern accent" -of which there are many-is very contagious and tenacious. DD is gradually moving south in her educational process, and her mid-Atlantic clip is slowing down and stretching out. On the other hand, our dear friend moved North many years ago-and still, the moment she starts talking, notifies all as to where she was born and raised. Easy to pick up, hard to lose.

Very interesting comment, veer! I'm not sure I can answer. I'm not a southerner myself, although I lived in Georgia, U.S.A. for quite a few years, as well as in 4 or 5 other areas in this very large country. I think our southerners are very secure in their "southern-ness," and the reasons for their uniquenesses are from largely positive socio-economic factors rather than from lack of opportunities or downtroddeness. The climate, for one thing, is dramatically different than anywhere else in the U.S. Throw in the immigration patterns, regional foods (refer back to climate), large rural populations, and you have quite a mix. Not to say there is not poverty, etc., but just that it isn't really a factor in their celebrated quirks. I've never met a southerner who bristled at being gently teased about certain aspects of his or her character - on the contrary, they tend to be delighted to talk about themselves and their unique qualities.

Hope this makes some sense and I haven't offended.

OKAY......before we get all defensive and offended, we must recall that this writer plies her craft deep in the south and is enjoyed and loved by all!
Don't shoot the messenger.

Here's a link I know you will enjoy!

Here is a link that might be useful: Celia Rivenbark

Vee, thanks for your input. I suppose we who have lived in so many parts of the south have developed thick skins, as we are so used to having been teased about our accents and perceived mind-sets.

For those who wish to see the south lampooned grandly, I recommend the film "Junebug" and the books of Florence King.

Right on, Siobhan! I would think that all the different regions in this big old country are right proud of their distinctiveness, even though the stereotyping of character and behavior is sometimes extreme. One can no doubt find examples of all types of people in every region.
My pet peeve, however, is the very fake sounding accents you often hear in the movies. You'd think, if they wanted southern speech, they'd hire a southern actor.

Hm, I think it's kind of wonderful that we an tease each other and still remain friends. I am a kooky Californian, "my brain has been fried by the sun" and I don't mind being teased about it at all.

That's exactly what I meant!

Yeah, I think we're all on the same page here.

I think theres a difference between being teased a bit, and the stereotypes I've seen in movies. The Cars is a perfect example. The dumbest, goofiest looking car has a Southern accent. I'm not from the south, but I cringe when I see those kinda things.

I think whats sad is that we have lost so many of our regional distinctions. We actually have professional speech teachers who help folks lose their 'accent' so they can get a better job. So we are all sounding alike, eating alike, being alike. Its a shame, really. Theres so much fun in diversity.

Cindy-

what you are saying strikes a cord with me, but in a more global sense...I get sad when I see the golden arches or things like that in other countries, like we are becoming one big place instead of a lot of little unique places.

Thats funny - actually I was going to add that to my post but decided I'd already ranted on another thread and figured folks were gonna get tired of it. But yes - I've been to many places in Europe and am always surprised and dismayed by the number of American chains I see, by the kind of music thats played (all American for the most part), on and on. I miss being able to go somewhere and find it. unique to that culture. Globalization is good for economics, but not so good when you are curious and want to know more about the people in our world.

That being said, maybe the more we are alike, the less likely we are to look at another group with hate and bigotry. Or not - people being people, they'll find a way.

True, Cindy-all species have a pecking order-humans just elevate it to a weird, negative "art form."

re: the ubiquitous "golden arches": We always tried, when on vacation with our young children, to "eat where we were" and avoid the chain restaurants...my DH used to say "we didn't fly all this way to eat at a restaurant that is around the corner at home." But it became difficult in some places to FIND anything other than the chains-even the hotel clerks wanted to send you to Appleby's.

Thanks for this thread, Yoyobon. I've just finished reading the book and found it very funny. My favorite phrase in it is the perfect way to describe my early first marriage: "achey breaky big mistakey."

We learned to ask the locals - store clerks, taxi drivers - where they'd eat around the area. Inevitably they'd tell us about this great little pub or diner that was just what we were looking for.

We did the same thing-a college student selling tickets at the museum sent us to a local place in Washington State that we still remember fondly. I think hotel clerks are afraid to send people anywhere but "the norm" for fear guests will be disappointed-since the guests know where to find the clerks!