North vs South

I read your column on where the South starts with interest. I grew up in the border State of Missouri, which, in the Civil War or "War for Independence", was subject to lots of  contradictions on the issue.  During the 1860s, for example, the State Legislature voted to stay with the Union, but the Governor took the State Seal, which would have been affixed to any legislation passed, and left for Texas without signing anything!

 

In the period just before and after World War II, I became aware that the St. Louis area had several varying patterns of speech.  I lived in suburban Kirkwood (just 15 miles west of Downtown), and noted how my speech differed from that of youngsters 50 miles north,  in St. Louis County (adjoining the City of St. Louis). 

And how the talk of those kids differed from mine, or from words used by boys, just 30 miles southeast of St. Louis City. For instance, in Kirkwood, we referred to other boys our age as "you guys," while those to the north said "youse guys."  In south St. Louis City and those environs, boys referred to others as "youseall guys."  (I am not kidding!)

 

Parenthetically, I noted that young waiters and waitresses in Ocala today refer to both male and female patrons universally as "you guys” without regard to gender. When I moved, later in life, to Northern Virginia with my wife and children, we picked up the habit of referring to others as "you all."  The son of an acquaintance originally from Southern Virginia said those of us residing in Northern Virginia adjoining the District of Columbia were not truly southerners who properly pronounced the words "y'all."

 

As a family, we were properly put in our place on a visit to a small museum in the Florida Panhandle several years before we moved to Marion County. Two guards at the museum, after listening to us talk, whispered together and then asked suspicially if we were "Northerners”. 

Guessing we might be subject to some prejudice or ostracizing action, I temporized by saying we were from Virginia.  One of the guards replied that he thought we were all right, having feared we were "Yankees from South Florida."