Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 06:12:00 EDT
From: "David A. Johns" DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET
Subject: Offensive terms
# Since it was used a while back in this discussion, let me
# register my offense at "The War of Northern Aggression,:" y'all.
#
# David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens OH
A few years ago, while exploring back roads along the bluffs
overlooking the Mississippi in southwestern Wisconsin, I found a
cemetery with graves going back to the mid-19th century. Near the
back were a few headstones dated 1861, with inscriptions indicating
that the young men buried there had died in the "Infamous Southern
Rebellion". So there.
"Yankee", by the way, is definitely a negative term in Waycross, GA,
where I'm living now -- I've even seen bumper stickers saying "I had
[!] rather be dead than be a Yankee." But natives have no qualms
about using it openly; in fact, I hear "Are you a Yankee?" several
times a week, not to mention constant references to Yankees "coming
down here and telling us how to live our lives".
I don't know what this says about Southern manners.
David Johns
Waycross College
Waycross, GA