> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Potter
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > On 9/27/07, Michael Potter <mhpotter@...> wrote:
> >> Chattanooga, TN, must be in the real South, then, because
> I still hear
> >> this phrase all the time. :p
> >
> > I wasn't casting aspersions, for the record. Just
> acknowledging that
> > what I hear around here in Atlanta is vastly filtered
> compared to most
> > of the South; nobody here is from here, as the joke goes. So I am
> > therefore somewhat unreliable as eyes and ears on the ground when
it
> > comes to questions of Southern/Southron usage.
>
> Don't worry, I didn't take it that way, I was just making a joke.
>
> I would say that Chattanooga isn't too much different from Atlanta,
but
> some of the difference, I think, is because of the sheer size of
> Atlanta. I live about 20 miles north of Chattanooga, and I'm in a
very
> rural area. The same distance north of Atlanta gets you to Marietta,
> which didn't seem to be very rural the last time I was down there. I
> think you would need to get away from the influence of
> Atlanta (if that makes any sense) to get to the "real" South.
I don't like picking on hometowns, but I live the other direction
(just outside Knoxville, which I also could pick on) and avoid
Chattanooga like the plague because culturally it is very much like
that pit known as Atlanta which I also avoid, though not as big. It
is very much the "real" South.