What is a Southern state?

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Maria
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What is a Southern state?

Post by Maria »

I split this off from the Capital Punishment thread since it has nothing to do with capital punishment. Feel free to rename it if you would like to.

I think it's crazy that Virginia is considered a southern state.
Last edited by Maria on Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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River
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by River »

Um...the capital of the Confederacy was Richmond.
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by N.E. Brigand »

River wrote:Um...the capital of the Confederacy was Richmond.
And Virginia is in fact south of another southern state: the original Mason-Dixon line separates Maryland, which is north of Virginia, with Pennsylvania.
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Maria
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by Maria »

OK, confuse me with facts, why don't you? :P Virginia is mostly north and east of the places I've lived in Missouri, and Missouri isn't (most of the time) considered a southern state.

People in southern states have drawls. And hurricanes. And semi-tropical climates. And fig trees. And huge wonderful pecan trees. And live oaks. And swamps. And alligators. They are strange and exotic places where people put grits in everything.

Virginia is just.... Virginia. Midwest in the mountains. Not much different than the Ozarks where I grew up.

I honestly didn't think about politics when I said it was crazy to consider Virginia a southern state. The land and climate is totally different, which is what I think of in relation to northern/southern/eastern/western states.
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Dave_LF
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by Dave_LF »

It's Southern by tradition, but not so much by geography
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by RoseMorninStar »

Traditions, including slavery (especially slavery), defined what is 'Southern' or 'Northern (Union or Confederate). New Mexico and Arizona are 'Southern' but not really THE South.. They are more likely to be included as the West. North/South is generally defined by the Mason-Dixon line. Here is some specific information on how Missouri fits into the overall picture: The History Channel: The Missouri Compromise
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by Frelga »

American regional divisions are not really self-evident. Midwest, for example, is really more like Near East.
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by RoseMorninStar »

It can depend upon what source one uses. Minnesota & Wisconsin are 'Midwest'?
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Inanna
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by Inanna »

Voronwë the Faithful wrote:I split off the unrelated osgiliation from this thread
Warning: Oxymoron present
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by N.E. Brigand »

RoseMorninStar wrote:It can depend upon what source one uses. Minnesota & Wisconsin are 'Midwest'?
Too far north, too far west, or too far east?

I think there's an argument that Minnesota and Wisconsin shouldn't be in the same category: all of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were once part of the United States' "Northwest Territory," but only part of Minnesota was.

Ohioans generally think of themselves as midwesterners, but I distinctly remember Tom Hanks talking about this once on the David Letterman show. Hanks hails from California, but for two years in the late 1970s he was a member of the acting company at Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (now Great Lakes Theater) here in Cleveland. Letterman, a native of Indiana, asked Hanks about their shared midwestern experiences, and Hanks retorted, "Cleveland's not in the midwest. It's a big eastern city!" And I'd agree that in many ways Cleveland feels more like Buffalo or Pittsburgh than Columbus or Indianapolis. On the other hand, people from Cincinnati, at the other end of the state, have a southern accent. (They also say "Please?" when they don't hear what someone says, i.e., when most Americans might say "I'm sorry?" or "Excuse me?") And speaking of Pittsburgh, people there or in Philadelphia sometimes refer to the central and largerly rural parts of their state as "Pennsyltucky," i.e., as a patch of the south found in the north.

Four years ago a friend and I visisted St. Louis for the first time (apart from driving through in the middle of the night once as a kid) on a short vacation to southern Illinois to see the 2017 eclipse at its point of longest totality. (Coincindentally, the 2024 eclipse path will cross the same spot before traveling northeast to Cleveland, although the place where totality will last longest is in Mexico.) After viewing the eclipse, we drove to Cairo, at Illinois' southern tip, where the Ohio meets the Mississippi (it's pronounced "care-oh" even though that region of Illinois is sometimes referred to as "Little Egypt"). As we stood at that confluence, in a northern state, we were south of most of Kentucky and Virginia.

I see that the southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are sometimes grouped with large swaths of many southern states as the Upland South.
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Re: Unrelated osgilliation from Capital Punishment Thread

Post by Frelga »

It's illogical, but so is most of human history.
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Re: Unrelated osgilliation from Capital Punishment Thread

Post by RoseMorninStar »

N.E. I prefer maps that include a 'Great Lakes' (or even 'Upper Midwest') region along with a few other defining areas like 'Central Rockies'. I seem to recall having this discussion with Túrin..
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Re: Capital punishment

Post by N.E. Brigand »

N.E. Brigand wrote:Four years ago a friend and I visisted St. Louis for the first time (apart from driving through in the middle of the night once as a kid) on a short vacation to southern Illinois to see the 2017 eclipse at its point of longest totality. (Coincindentally, the 2024 eclipse path will cross the same spot before traveling northeast to Cleveland, although the place where totality will last longest is in Mexico.) After viewing the eclipse, we drove to Cairo, at Illinois' southern tip, where the Ohio meets the Mississippi (it's pronounced "care-oh" even though that region of Illinois is sometimes referred to as "Little Egypt"). As we stood at that confluence, in a northern state, we were south of most of Kentucky and Virginia. I see that the southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are sometimes grouped with large swaths of many southern states as the Upland South.
I'd like to go back to that area some October for the annual "Snake Road" reptile migration. (On a smaller scale, there's a Cleveland suburb where the local park system closes a particular road on rainy nights from late February through early April to allow salamanders and frogs to migrate safely. It's really cool to see.)
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