Posted on 08/02/2014 7:14:02 AM PDT by SamAdams76
My wife and I arrived in Mobile four years ago. As we drove from Pennsylvania into the deep South, I began to notice the subtle changes that became increasingly less subtle...
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.edu ...
Cali urban trash.
>>If it helps him understand, just substitute “dumb*ss” for “honey” and he’ll get to a level he can comprehend.
He would understand that because his worldview is that “I am educated and special. You are lowborn. I expect you to hate me, serving girl.”
Your work sounds way more interesting than reading 16 pages about this guy’s deep thoughts on the waitress at the Waffle House.
When I call the author a “dumbf**k” I am engaging in a rhetorical discourse that acts as interprellation in that I am establishing a role for both him and me in our exchange, I, as the one who recognizes a dumbf**k and he as the dumbf**k.
At first, I wondered if this was a joke. My husband insisted it was, but NO - I recognize some bits of the rhetoric from my English Lit classes. “Analyze, dissect, destroy’ — the poor academics, so lost in their big words, so clueless about Reality. Pathetic indeed.
Ya, would he rather be ignored or not called anything?
I think it’s nice if a waitress calls a customer honey. I don’t see it as some sociological statement or customer/servant power issue. Nor would I think that such a waitress is anything but being friendly.
This dude is over analyzing the whole thing.
Hey, don’t blame us Californians - we sent him East where he belonged. Maybe the South will do him some good, but it’ll take lots of time and much patience.
It can be a little disconcerting. It was about 10 years ago in Tucson when the waitresses added “honey” and “sweetie” to their lexicon, I found it a bit odd at first. Not 16 pages worth of odd though. Maybe 4 sentences worth.
At first I thought that this was some kind of satire. Nobody but an educated fool could take being called honey this seriously.
At a Waffle House in Duluth, Georgia, I was addressed by my waitress as “baby doll” during my entire visit. I rather liked it, but it did occur to me that no other woman in my life had ever called me that!
That explains a lot.
In California it’s only the guys that call other guys honey.
The South has its own mannerisms and idioms.
Y’all, any carbonated drink, for example, is called Coke and Tea is iced and sweetened, unless otherwise requested.
“Honey” is better than ‘you snooty ferener from Yankee territory’.
Its just the way we are down here. Please don’t move here and eff it up worse than your fellow outsiders already have. :-)
“At a Waffle House in Duluth, Georgia, I was addressed by my waitress as “baby doll” during my entire visit.”
A waitress at one of our local restaurants used to call me “Sweet Pea.” It made me smile, and she got big tips from me. Win-win.
That's it in a nutshell.
He must be great fun at parties.
At my local 24 hour breakfast place, the waitresses call you “honey”, and I literally have given it a total of a half-second of thought in my entire time eating there. Waitresses calling you “honey” is simply part of the southern diner experience, same as grits and chicken fried steak.
When you go to Disneyworld and the giant Mickey Mouse mascot gives you a hug, he is not really that happy to see you. It’s the same thing.
To analyze it as the author does demonstrates a special level of cluelessness and oversensitivity. Of course, such politeness and familiarity also hearkens back to a more polite time in American history, and the academic left is hell-bent on destroying every last vestige of that.
Probably a beta-male.
“Is he over-analyzing how waitresses talk to customers?”
He is being fearsomely intelligent, academe’s version of the sand-kicking jock. Reads like a lot of mental masturbation.
I wish I could get through one thread at this site that doesn’t make an anti-Romney remark.
Congratulations. Your candidate won. Romney didn’t. Aren’t you proud, honey?
Yes, I believe I left a hefty tip that night too.
As a native Mobilian, I feel sorry for this guy. The subject is insane.
He imagines himself as some sort of well-traveled, modern day Herodotus. The waitresses may refer to him as “honey”, but the truckers in Waffle House likely want to kick his ass.
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