Posted on 01/17/2011 7:06:10 AM PST by JoeProBono
WASHINGTON, - Cultural observers say Washington is losing the Southern charm that once made the U.S. capital the crossroads of North and South.
A growing population of foreign immigrants and Yankees has gradually overtaken the Southern influence of the capital city, which actually sits just south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
"We put Washington and the northern part of Virginia in what we call the Midland, which also includes Philadelphia and Pittsburgh," said Sharon Ash, a university of Pennsylvania professor of linguistics who specializes in U.S. speech. "Migration patterns are changing things everywhere."
The Washington Post said Sunday that other experts consider Richmond to now be the border line between North and South.
The newspaper also noted that one visible sign of the demographic change is the virtual disappearance of businesses with the word "Dixie" in the name. Dixie Liquor in Georgetown, the Post noted, is the only such establishment left.
Didn’t JFK say that DC combined the best of Northern charm and Southern efficiency?
Heh...I go by that liquor store a couple times a week on my way to grad school classes. I never actually noticed the name.
It’s astonishing to hear an actual Virginia or Southern Maryland accent around here anymore.
I was born in DC, my grandfather was a DC Trolleyman, and my Mom had an authentic Southern Maryland accent (and one of my uncles had the same accent so thick he was incomprehensible - like Boomhauer on King of the Hill.)
Many people in the DC area are from NY, New England and Pennsylvania. When the jobs left these areas and there was no opportunity many people left for the DC area where there were plenty of high paying jobs. There are many people from West Virginia too.
Politicians allow illegal immigrants to to ignore the law and get very generous social services for themselves and their families. The DC area attracts many of them.
LLS
So we Yankees are classed alongside the illegals??? We aren't foreigners, for goodness sake!
Yes, JFK said that about D.C.
As a Hoosier transplant to the Northern Virginia suburbs, I maintain that the Old Dominion doesn't really start until you get south of the Rappahannock River.
In 1979, I went to DC to spend the summer. The day after I arrived, I realized I was in the South when I saw grits and scrapple on my breakfast plate.
In 2007, I returned to DC after many years. The restaurant where I had eaten grits and scrapple was gone, but not far away was a Chipotle Grill, part of a chain that specializes in Mexican cookery—a cuisine not to be found in DC in 1979.
When I attended President Reagan's inauguration in 1981, I stayed in a motel in Fredericksburg that was on a street named after Jefferson Davis. Driving around town, I saw a Bonnie Blue Flag flying in front of one house, so I figured I was in the real Virginia.
I ran into such an accent in Portsmouth, Va. about 15 years ago asking for directions at a gas station. Almost an accent you hear on those PBS programs set on an English country estate.
That looks yummy!
The Tidewater Virginia/Eastern North Carolina accent is easily the most pleasant and beautiful in the country.
As someone whose roots in Virginia go back to the seventeenth century, I’d almost agree with you. Once you get out in the backwoods of Maryland, you’re in the South again. In Virginia, the South starts south and east of Fredericksburg and to the west of Ashby’s Gap. If you can find Duke’s mayonnaise in the grocery stores, Confederate flags outside of the houses, and “I (heart) Blueticks” bumper stickers on the F-250s, you’re in the South.
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