West Virginia...Southern or Northern?

[Bellic]

Originally Posted by southernlady5464

Having settled in the northern panhandle from SC, I disagree. This area is very southern in attitude.

Lol. Lived there until my twenties when I moved out. No.


Even the most hardcore rednecks and county ghetto mentalities were never in the north, they were in ****ty *** Steubenville and/or Burgettsown, two towns which are not even in WV but Ohio and Pennsylvania.

[southernlady5464]

Originally Posted by Bellic

Lol. Lived there until my twenties when I moved out. No.


Even the most hardcore rednecks and county ghetto mentalities were never in the north, they were in ****ty *** Steubenville and/or Burgettsown, two towns which are not even in WV but Ohio and Pennsylvania.

I guessing you don’t know what a southern attitude is?

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by HillToppingHaint

So basically what you're saying is that Huntington is southern Appalachian, that mightn't be what you meant to say but you all but admitted it when you said the guy is ashamed of his heritage and looks down on the Huntingtonians who don't live in the direct city-limits. Sorry, but linguistically, culturally and religiously Huntington is nothing like Weirton or Wheeling, its just a southern Appalachian river-town.

You musn't of listened very closely because the farmers in that video absolutely do put an "a-" prefix before their words from time to time. Something, by the way, you hear all the time from old timers in Huntington too.

Well four months+ later you are still smack talking this guy from a medium size city on the Ohio River for not IDing himself with the mountain culture that surrounds the city, but rather the river that runs through it. I'd say you are continuing to prove HIS point, there is a big difference and a sorta-friendly animosity between rural and urbanized areas in Appalachia. Again, I see the same thing in the small city where I live. Even within a geographic region there are urban/rural splits in both self-ID and in culture itself. I mean, you live there, you know this already.

I'll go listen to the link again, maybe I missed it. But even if I did, I know old folks from Garrett County, MD, literally just two counties east of Morgantown who were still a-prefixing as late as 2000 or 2010, so unless you are going to expand "Southern Appalachia" to include almost all of WV and parts of MD (which I suppose you could, but I think there are valid cultural/geographic/demographic regions for doing so) that variable is just one of many. Still, the dialect didn't sound foreign to my ear, I live about 70 miles or less from those folks. I would not have placed them south of Sutton, which I think is what most WVers on this site use as the rough dividing line between north and south WV.

Some guy having a different opinion in a border region shouldn't matter so much, it certainly doesn't for me. I am making conversation. You are where the mountains and hills meet, industry and agriculture co-exist, one can live in a city of about 50k, or in a rural mountains setting just a few miles away. With different vibes going on, an insistence of reducing the argument to latitude lines and generalized regions isn't going to be agreed upon by everyone.

[chicken_nuggets24]

From my experience traveling through border states, I have found the mix of Southern and Northern influences to be the most balanced in West Virginia and not nearly as one-sided as states such as Kentucky and Missouri.

For instance, the people of West Virginia live a similar way of life compared to states down south, yet like the people up north, they know how to deal with cold weather and do not panic over the chance of snow.

What do y'all think?

[mensaguy]

I moved the above post into this thread since it generally seems to fit.