As someone who has spent many years in both South-Central and West-Central Indiana… What? We’re the South in all but name.
Have you been to this part of Indiana? Because you walk into an Indiana diner and you’ll see a lot of familiar stuff on the menu that belongs in the South. You’ll also hear accents that sound like they belong in the South.
It’s really silly to think that Southern culture just stops at the Kentucky border line.
Also, I’m talking about the southern half of Indiana. Not all of Indiana.
Kentucky ain’t Southern either. I can get a Burrito in DC, that doesn’t mean they’re part of SoCal or the South West. Tennessee is the farthest north I would say the word Southern applies. And half of both those states is actually Appalachia. The Western side of Kentucky is very much Mid-West.
And yes I’ve visited and lived in the area, and in the South.
Being a rural hick doesn’t make you southern. It’s only been the last 20-30 years that Midwest small towns have been trying to preteend that they are southern rednecks.
I’m 47. No it hasn’t.
Not only am I 47, I’m 47 and married to someone who’s family goes back to Indiana from the mid-1800s, mostly the Owen County area.
It’s the South. It is. You go to Kentucky or Tennessee, it’s basically the same culture except they get to call themselves Southern. Even most of the traditional food is much more southern. Grits, okra, cornbread, you name it.
If you went to Tennessee and thought it was the same culture as Southern Indiana you didn’t do anything but drive though and stop for food a couple times.
This is Guam erasure.
Most of these are pretty shoddy, but this one is really good. It’s detailed and accurate about a lot of the idoiosyncrasies.
Like FlyingSquid I would have pushed “The South” a little further north into Western Pennsylvania, and up through Missouri into south Indiana. And what in the world is “The Northwoods,” that’s the YooPee and Wisconsin is upper midwest. But other than that it’s spot on as to a whole lot of the details. South Florida as part of the Caribbean, Washington/Oregon as part of the interior once you get away from the coast… it has a lot of little important details right.
northwoods is a regional forest, like a boreal forests but not quite one. it runs from the boundry waters in Minnesota down to duluth. through this weird gross area on the southern edge of lake superior. before finally getting into an area smart enough to say it’s michigan even though its not touching michigan, thus no longer being gross. and the people living in that forest are definitely their own kinda people.
I can always tell with food. In the Midwest you don’t dare use any spice except salt and maybe some rosemary on Christmas. Anything else is too fancy. The West Coast has their own style, northeast has chowder and seafood, except salmon which is the PNW. Interesting how they all separate.
I remember driving through the Midwest and I just wanted a sparkling water. Anything bubbly. They had coolers and coolers of soda and added sugar drinks, two small things of actual water, and one thing of liquid death, with added sugar. Wild place
From an outside perspective, I’m not sure Alaska and the rest of the Pacific have much in common culturally. Same for various areas of the “Interior”.
Locally 0.3 is referred to as The NYC TriState Area
TriState area
I only ever hear this phrase in an American context. Are your states more likely to meet with 3 at a point or something? I never hear “quadstate” or “bistate” area?
Theu don’t actually meet at a point, but suburbs in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut all feed into and support New York City. We do have a couple of “bi-state” areas like St. Louis, Kansas City, and Cincinnati. It’s the result of our cities rising into prominence after political boundaries were drawn up, whereas most major European cities had the modern political boundaries drawn up around them.
The only cotoes that i would really describe as “tri-state” are NYC, Washington (since the District of Columbia is a seperate entity than Maryland and Virginia) Philadelphia, and Chicago. Philadelphia is the only one of these where the 3 states actually meet at a single point though.
Thanks, that’s an interesting perspective. Cities developing somewhat independently of state / county lines. Here in the UK it seems our counties are so much smaller and irregular that it seems like a phrase that’s never found much use
https://jonathan.rawle.org/hyperpedia/counties/images/big74.gif
