Regional Differences

[Wishing on a star]

OMG!!!
In my case, we were married in my hometown in the south, with a very few people coming from Michigan on DH's side. It was a very small wedding with a budget of nearly zero... But, get this... Since many of my family were living some distance away at that time, there were no showers or anything prior... There were a lot of gifts from our side!!! They all ended up being brought to our small reception luncheon... I wonder if people on DH's side were like , or , or .

This is something that I have known/thought NOTHING about!!!!

 

[Michelle67]

Great thread. I love regional differences, they are really interesting.

I have a hard time identifying things from my own upbringing in terms of region because my parents are from two different parts of the country (California and Oklahoma), met and married in Germany, and we lived all over the country (military). I get the oddest looks from people sometimes because I regularly use slang terms from all over the place, and they can't figure out where I'm "from".

My best friend loves to get me to say "dog" and then she tries to say it the way I do. I often pronounce it the way my grandmother does (born in Alabama, moved to Oklahoma as a teenager) which sounds like dowg (ow in the middle, as in ow that hurt). My friend can't say it. Makes her laugh. I can say dahg the way people say it here, but it only comes out that way about half the time.

It is not particularly unusual in the PNW to order tartar sauce with your fries, whether you are having fish or not. Doesn't get you any weird looks. Beyond WA and OR, I've gotten the strangest looks for asking for it.

Went to Canada and was completely taken by surprise to be offered gravy with my fries. HUH?

In WA if you order "tea" you get hot tea. If you want iced tea you have to say so. Most places do not serve iced tea pre-sweetened...which IMHO is a crime against nature. Sugar simply does not properly dissolve into cold tea. When my relatives or friends visit from other areas and order "tea" I jump in to translate and warn them that it won't be sweetened. They usually change their order.

Of course I learned the hard way in VA that when I wanted hot tea I had to say so. Just saying "CUP" of tea (as opposed to glass) didn't cut it. I drank a lot of iced tea that I didn't really want first thing in the morning until I fixed my lingo.

I have an English friend that I've known for 8 1/2 years via private message board, who was grossed out for over a year by me talking about making biscuits and gravy for my husband before she finally said something to me about it. Of course a biscuit to her is a cookie, and she had no idea what we call a biscuit. Another English friend of both of ours, who now lives in Canada, explained to her that our biscuits are "rather like a savory scone, except of course scones are nicer."

Same English friend made me laugh by talking about her daughter wearing her husband's jumper. What she calls a jumper I call a sweater. What I call a jumper, she would probably call a pinafore. I had the most hysterical mental image of her husband prancing around in a dress. He thought it was pretty funny too, when she told him about it.

Fireflies (lightening bugs) - I grew up catching them, but now live in an area with none.

Various liquor laws when traveling - Some places have dry counties, other sell in grocery stores. I walked into a bar area in Washington state with my DD (age 5) to swipe some napkins off the bar because she had a cut that was bleeding and the bartender freaked out that she couldn't be in the bar area (we were waiting for our table at the adjoining restaurant section). In my area, having kids in bars in no problem legal wise. Many local bar and grills are pretty packed with families early in the evenings.

We do have kind of an odd law about that here. The way it works is that children can be in bars that serve food only during certain hours (I think they have to be out by 9 pm), only in the dining area, and ONLY if there are at least two steps (stairs) separating the dining area from the bar area. Which always struck me as kinda funny. As if the kids couldn't possibly climb the stairs? And you can bring all the alcohol you want down the stairs anyhow so...why the stairs?

 

[PrincessKsMom]

1) States that allow smoking inside restaurants, bars and even grocery stores.

2) Pork steaks. Been to more than one butcher shop in California and got the deer in the headlights look back when I asked if they had any.

3) Opening Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve. Geez, Santa doesn't even come until after you've gone to bed on Christmas Eve.

4) Blue laws. I work M-F, if I can't shop on Sunday, I won't have groceries.

5) Sweet Tea. One sip, you've got instant diabetes. Surprised the food police haven't sentenced someone to death for that syrupy creation.

6) State run liquor stores, and states that ban sales on liquor and beer.

7) Passing on the right hand shoulder on the highway.

8) People who think a 5.9 earthquake is newsworthy.

When it's not a common occurrence, and you're sitting on the 45th Floor of a building in NYC right before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, you have a different perspective on this.

 

[Robinrs]

1) States that allow smoking inside restaurants, bars and even grocery stores.

2) Pork steaks. Been to more than one butcher shop in California and got the deer in the headlights look back when I asked if they had any.

3) Opening Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve. Geez, Santa doesn't even come until after you've gone to bed on Christmas Eve.

4) Blue laws. I work M-F, if I can't shop on Sunday, I won't have groceries.

5) Sweet Tea. One sip, you've got instant diabetes. Surprised the food police haven't sentenced someone to death for that syrupy creation.

6) State run liquor stores, and states that ban sales on liquor and beer.

7) Passing on the right hand shoulder on the highway.

8) People who think a 5.9 earthquake is newsworthy.

Maybe not on the left coast but it's a BIG DEAL in NY!

 

[Michelle67]

Oh...another one I thought of. We were not allowed to say "huh?" or "what?" if we didn't hear someone properly growing up. The expected response was either "pardon me" (or just pardon) or "excuse me?" Most of the time when I hear other people say "excuse me?" in conversation it means they are offended by what you just said. When I say it, it means I didn't hear you.

When it's not a common occurrence, and you're sitting on the 45th Floor of a building in NYC right before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, you have a different perspective on this.

That's for sure! If I was on the 45th floor of ANYWHERE I don't think I'd be feeling too casual about an earthquake.

Where I live earthquakes are not at all uncommon and don't even necessarily stop conversation. They might pass with an "Oh...earthquake. Anyhow, I told Jenny...." Literally has happened in my house. However, most of our public buildings (except the very old ones) are built with earthquakes in mind, too. I sat through a good sized earthquake on the top floor of a very old steel-girded building once, and that was a trip. That building SCREAMED the whole time from the girders grinding against each other. It was pretty unsettling, even for someone who is very blase about earthquakes.

 

[tvguy]

When it's not a common occurrence, and you're sitting on the 45th Floor of a building in NYC right before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, you have a different perspective on this.

The whole September 11th mindset I understand. As we have been planning our 10th anniversary coverage, it has been eye opening as people who were on the east coast 10 years ago are much more moved today at the anniversary than those who were on the west coast.
While it happened before before most of us were born, Pearl Harbor still has a bigger impact for many of us. Most of us have known or are related to people who were there, or relatives of the 2,400 who died, but don't know any of the people at the Twin Towers or the 1,600 people who died there.
But, this is a community that at one point has 5 Air Force bases within a 70 mile radius, and 4 Army depots.

 

[ilovemk76]

Oh...another one I thought of. We were not allowed to say "huh?" or "what?" if we didn't hear someone properly growing up. The expected response was either "pardon me" (or just pardon) or "excuse me?" Most of the time when I hear other people say "excuse me?" in conversation it means they are offended by what you just said. When I say it, it means I didn't hear you.



That's for sure! If I was on the 45th floor of ANYWHERE I don't think I'd be feeling too casual about an earthquake.

Where I live earthquakes are not at all uncommon and don't even necessarily stop conversation. They might pass with an "Oh...earthquake. Anyhow, I told Jenny...." Literally has happened in my house. However, most of our public buildings (except the very old ones) are built with earthquakes in mind, too. I sat through a good sized earthquake on the top floor of a very old steel-girded building once, and that was a trip. That building SCREAMED the whole time from the girders grinding against each other. It was pretty unsettling, even for someone who is very blase about earthquakes.

I have heard it used when a person farts or burps in public.

 

[Michelle67]

I have heard it used when a person farts or burps in public.

Oh yes, of course. Or when they want to get by. But I meant in the middle of a conversation. I guess they could have farted or burped in the middle of the conversation too. But then usually in that context it isn't phrased as a question, but more a statement, kwim? "Excuse me." As opposed to "excuse me?"

 

[scrapquitler]

Maybe not on the left coast but it's a BIG DEAL in NY!

Just like that 2" of snow that stops everything dead in Georgia...and those of us in New England just go when we get almost a foot of snow.

 

[Mkrop]

Maybe not on the left coast but it's a BIG DEAL in NY!

And esp DC, they are not use to it and for them the anniversary of 9/11 where they got attacked is very fresh in people's minds too.


Another regional diffference is the siblings at bday parties. I would never think of a sibling coming, or me bringing one, if they are not on the invitation.

 

[Simba's Mom]

I am really amazed that while we're all residents of the USA, regional differences make our experiences so radically different. Eighteen years ago, we moved from a small town in Massachusetts to the southern border in Texas (yes, the place with the Border Wall). Wow, it felt like moving to another country. For one thing, the schools were so different! Yes, corporal punishment is allowed here, people homeschool (no one I knew did in MA), all students are given a required supply list, and school bus boundaries are 2 miles-NO EXCEPTIONS! There are tons of other things, but I'll just mention the wedding reception in Golden Coral that I saw and that it took me months to remember that if I ordered "tea", I was getting iced tea. Lots of places didn't even sell hot tea. It's like another world, but still the USA.

 

[KristaTX]

Lots of stuff already mentioned, but the three that come to my mind right now are:

1) There are way more Catholics in the US than I knew before I was on the DIS and starting making DIS friends around the country. It's more of a minor denomination in this part of the country, with the majority of Catholics being Latino or being transplants from the north. I always wondered why movies/TV so often portray religious people as Catholic. I still think that's partly because the priest's uniforms make it obvious that they are religious figures, and because they don't have families to muddy up the storyline.

2) That "lawyer" is mispronounced by most of the country . I was shocked when I asked (I may have done a poll?) and found out that most people say "loy-er" instead of pronouncing it the phonetic way, "law-yer".

3) The wedding differences, as mentioned. I've grown up with the more southern traditions for weddings, receptions, gift-giving. I always wondered how the average cost of a wedding was in the tens of thousands of dollars, like you hear on TV or in news stories. Now I know.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

The fact that in some climates, people don't need to shower every day. Being in Florida, it came as a real surprise LOL!

Yikes! That's a surprise to me too! I live in a very dry state, but people here shower daily!!

That there are people who think that if you enjoy alcohol at parties and find it unusual if alcohol isn't served, you must automatically be an alcoholic or that guests will be stumbling around in a drunk and disorderly state.

That people call spaghetti sauce gravy

This too. And that people call it "an Italian thing". This Italian's born/raised in Sicily & Florence father and none of his family/friends every called it gravy.

That leads me to another one, too. That people in certain states seem to think that they have the market cornered on being Italian. Usually, it seems they do things very different from what I've seen in Italy and in the Italian immigrants I grew up with in Southern California. Not saying one is right and one is wrong, it's probably just the regional differences in Italy and where people from different regions settled in the U.S.

I learned that some people call any soda a Coke.. so they order a Coke and then the waiter says what kind and then they say Sprite or whatever.

this confuses me, too.

Maybe not on the left coast but it's a BIG DEAL in NY!

That's why it's a regional difference!

Oh...another one I thought of. We were not allowed to say "huh?" or "what?" if we didn't hear someone properly growing up. The expected response was either "pardon me" (or just pardon) or "excuse me?" Most of the time when I hear other people say "excuse me?" in conversation it means they are offended by what you just said. When I say it, it means I didn't hear you.

even more puzzling to me, was the poster who thought saying "what?" when you didn't hear someone was rude. She asked "whatever happened to "ma'am?" or "sir?"?" I still do not understand how saying "ma'am?" conveys the message that I did not hear what the person said.

Another regional diffference is the siblings at bday parties. I would never think of a sibling coming, or me bringing one, if they are not on the invitation.

Oh, yes. That almost never happens here, and when it does, people are shocked at the rudeness of the people who brought along the sibling.

More that I didn't see mentioned yet:

I did not know that some people pronouced Taylor and tailor differently.

That some public schools have no fee to play on the sports teams.

That in some areas it's weird for kids to be at weddings, and others it's weird for them not to be. Everyone I've lived, it's a personal choice. Some people have more family-friendly weddings, some don't.

Dinner at 5:00. Here it's usually 6 or 7. Earlier or later generally just if you're busy with activities at the regular time. (I have traveled enough to experience dinner at 8, 9 10:00 IRL, though. But apparently nowhere that it's usually served at 5)

That some people feed the kids dinner early, before the parents. Even when the parents are eating only an hour or so later and it's not like it's way past the kids bedtime or anything.

 

[luvsmickeymouse]

Someone posted how beautiful it was at night with lightening bugs in the cornfields. I want to say it was in Iowa or in that vicinity of the country. I never realized how pretty it would be. I would love to see a picture.

 

[JVL1018]

Lots of stuff already mentioned, but the three that come to my mind right now are:

1) There are way more Catholics in the US than I knew before I was on the DIS and starting making DIS friends around the country. It's more of a minor denomination in this part of the country, with the majority of Catholics being Latino or being transplants from the north. I always wondered why movies/TV so often portray religious people as Catholic. I still think that's partly because the priest's uniforms make it obvious that they are religious figures, and because they don't have families to muddy up the storyline.

2) That "lawyer" is mispronounced by most of the country . I was shocked when I asked (I may have done a poll?) and found out that most people say "loy-er" instead of pronouncing it the phonetic way, "law-yer".

3) The wedding differences, as mentioned. I've grown up with the more southern traditions for weddings, receptions, gift-giving. I always wondered how the average cost of a wedding was in the tens of thousands of dollars, like you hear on TV or in news stories. Now I know.

That reminds me-I thought everywhere you went around the country most people were Catholic like they are here.
I've always felt kind of weird for not being catholic since the majority of people I know are.
Well, I don't feel weird now, but in school when I wasn't making communion, or confirmation, was happily eating meat on Fridays, didn't give up anything for Lent, etc..
I am Protestant and had no clue that that is more common than Catholicism in other parts.
Almost every single person I knew growing up was Irish, Italian or both. So the Catholic thing makes sense. I was the only non Catholic Italian I knew, until I met my husband.

Anyway, to go along with that-I had no idea that in other parts of the country nothing is scheduled on Wednesday nights because that's church night or whatever. (Youth group? something..I forget, but I know my friend was surprised that we had stuff scheduled on a Wed night because they would never do that in her area because of church activities)

 

[aprilgail2]

:That some public schools have no fee to play on the sports teams.

.

LOL- I couldn't believe it when I heard that in some places you had to pay if you wanted to do school sports, clubs etc!

Book fees blew my mind too- can't even get half the kids parents to buy the supplies they need nevermind pay fees for books!

Property taxes kill me too--people in places pay less than 6,000 a year in property tax!

 

[design_mom]

Someone posted how beautiful it was at night with lightening bugs in the cornfields. I want to say it was in Iowa or in that vicinity of the country. I never realized how pretty it would be. I would love to see a picture.

There was a large field across the street from the house I grew up in. The lightning bugs really are beautiful. There were thousands of them...somehow, watching them was so peaceful.

I think a video would do it more justice than a still photograph. Here are a couple of videos I found on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDMHuM9Y3pc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_-hbsDGJag

 

[Disney Doll]

NEVER even heard of a viennese hour....

I have also heard it called a Venetian table or Venetian hour.

And you have not lived until you have seen the presentation of the Venetian/Viennese table at the Pontelandolfo Club in Waterbury CT.

 

[Disney Doll]

Gravy - so weird! Even though I know now that some people call spaghetti sauce gravy, I still picture brown gravy poured over noodles.

We had an eldelry Italian couple as our landlords when we 1st married and they called sauce gravy.

Frankly, their gravy/sauce/marinara was so darn good they could have called it poop on a shingle and I'd have eaten it.

 

[Disney Doll]

The big thing for me is weddings. The food, the open bar, the gifts etc - it's all so complicated! DH has college friends who live all over the country now, and we have three weddings to go to before Christmas - one in CT, one in MD and one in TN. I have no idea what to give! Do we give different amounts because they all live in different places? Or do we give the same in case they take notes? Do we take gifts to the weddings? Or do we get a gift from the registry AND give money? I can see myself going broke over trying to give the right amount to these people and worrying so much I go totally overboard!

In CT, cover your plate used to be a guideline but weddings are getting so expensive here that I don't know if it's do-able anymore. When I got married 20 years ago here, the meals were $40, so giving someone $100 as a wedding gift for a couple was the norm. My niece got married in 2009 and her dinners were close to $100/plate and that is about the norm in our area...she did not have what would be considered an extravagant wedding...and so I could see friends not being able to do the cover the plate thing.

If I was going to give someone a wedding gift, I would have it delivered to their home either before or after the wedding, rather than carrying it to the reception.