There's a whole lot of Texas west of Dallas and Houston.
True. But I would bet that most people in Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, Fort Worth, and Texarkana also consider themselves to be living in the South. Those cities plus Houston, Dallas, and Austin make up a majority of the state's population, and a good chunk of the state's rural population lives in Southern areas of the state as well. Of the 12 largest cities in Texas, El Paso, Brownsville, and Laredo are the only ones that I don't think of as Southern, and that is because they are on the border and therefore borrow a lot of their culture from Mexico.
That said, I don't particularly care how people classify Texas, and I am not a native Texans and am therefore not really qualified to speak to it anyway, so I will shut up now.
There's a whole lot of Texas west of Dallas and Houston.
True. But I would bet that most people in Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, Fort Worth, and Texarkana also consider themselves to be living in the South. Those cities plus Houston, Dallas, and Austin make up a majority of the state's population, and a good chunk of the state's rural population lives in Southern areas of the state as well. Of the 12 largest cities in Texas, El Paso, Brownsville, and Laredo are the only ones that I don't think of as Southern, and that is because they are on the border and therefore borrow a lot of their culture from Mexico.
That said, I don't particularly care how people classify Texas, and I am not a native Texans and am therefore not really qualified to speak to it anyway, so I will shut up now.
I'm not qualified either, but this discussion has been enlightening.
See, now I am pissing off native Texans! Although I just emailed my BFF in Houston, who is just about as native as they come, and she is insistent that this is the South, so I don't think there is a univeral opinion on this matter. Now I am curious and am going to go poll a few people in my office...
I'm in PA, 30 miles directly north of Gettysburg. Sweet tea is widely available here. And I don't consider the hideousness that McDonald's serves to be sweet tea.
Is this fairly knew? When i drove to college i couldn't get sweet tea once i got to Pennsylvania
The Harvard Dialect Survey Maps can be good, but migration has made most Southern-isms show up in California, New York, etc. I think the best one is the map for "what is it called when teenagers cover the front of your house with toilet paper, usually on Halloween", which is "rolling" where I grew up but every I've met outside the South calls "TPing" or "wtf why would anyone do that what sort of jackasses do they have in the South?".
I grew up in NJ. TPing is the clear answer. But also, you don't do that on Halloween -- you do it on Mischief Night (October 30). I think that may be a NJ thing? My husband is from Long Island and he had never heard of Mischief Night. But it is a good system -- you have time to do all the mischief without cutting into your trick-or-treating time.
Yes, of course v! My parents always made us bring in the pumpkins/jack o lanterns on mischief night.
I have now asked 17 people currently living in Texas whether they believe Texas to be in the South, and all have said yes. About half of those were born and raised here and half are transplants. But it is entirely possible they are all freaks .
ETA -- Person 18 just answered "No, this is Texas." So there you go.
See, now I am pissing off native Texans! Although I just emailed my BFF in Houston, who is just about as native as they come, and she is insistent that this is the South, so I don't think there is a univeral opinion on this matter. Now I am curious and am going to go poll a few people in my office...
From a Texan's point of view it is most certainly South, because you have to go North to get to all those places other people call South. It's geographically South and I think that's what you're getting when you poll around, but does it identify as culturally part of "the South?" No. Cowboy West is probably closer to its cultural identity. But I was raised on sweet ice tea so there's that.
How is at least a good portion of Texas not culturally Southern? In addition to the presence of sweet tea and a number of traditionally Southern foods, many Texans refer to Northerners as Yankees, treat sorority rush as though it has the import of a presidential election, do the whole "bless your heart" thing, refer to strangers by terms of endearment like "honey," employ a number of Southern phrases and speak in Southern accents, consider it important to know your close friends' silver patterns, place a big emphasis on "Southern hospitality," view groom's cake as essential at weddings, host "sip n sees," (regrettably) display Confederate flags, etc. Having lived in the true South, in the Midwest, and New England, Texas feels very culturally Southern to me. There is certainly a uniquely western, cowboy element present (that I sure is intensified in West Texas), but there is a heck of a lot of Southern culture in Texas.