You know who I am. You’ve seen me taking a selfie at Cajun Daiquiri, holding my first drive-thru daiquiri, a shit-eating grin on my face as I point to the little piece of Scotch tape across the Styrofoam cup’s straw opening that makes it a closed container. You know I’m about to post it on social media so all my non-Louisianian friends will see, “I can drink alcohol while driving here if I want to!”
You’ve also seen my half-curious, half-repulsed look as I peer into a huge pot of just-boiled crawfish. Or even better, clumsily trying to extract the teaspoon-sized meat from one. You guessed it will take me an hour to eat ten of them, which it did.
If you haven’t figured out who I am yet, then as soon as I open my mouth, you will think, Ah, yes. She speaks rapidly and nasally. She fails to say “ma’am” or “sir” when addressing someone older or in a formal situation. She voices her opinion about a city official, without realizing he was my aunt’s first husband.
Yes, I am a Yankee in Shreveport. In the near four years I’ve lived here I’ve only been called a Damn Yankee once, and that was in jest. I’m pretty sure (Right?). At my second Mardi Gras, while waiting for the Centaur parade, I told a man I’d been chatting with that I wasn’t really a Yankee because I had lived in California and Oregon, which weren’t part of that whole… you know, that incident back in the 1860s (I learned one phrase for it is “The Late Unpleasantness.” Am I the only one who thinks it sounds like a reference to menopause?). The man laughed and told me, “Honey, you are still a Yankee, and there’s only one kind of Yankee and that’s a Damn Yankee!”
I laughed with him. All in good fun, right?
OK, I admit it. I moved here in July 2012 from the Philadelphia area, a little worried about cultural adjustment. I had never lived in the South before. I had spent a few days in New Orleans in 1998, but that was for a high-tech conference, and I was often the only woman in a group of quiet, introverted, male engineers who were experiencing the French Quarter for the first time. It was all a little surreal.
A week before I moved here, I met emergency dentist near Mineola for my six-month checkup to get the basics of dental care and some scanning tests were done. Later I heard about all-on-4 in Mexico.You can check here if you want a dental implant or want a cracked tooth repair in georgetown tx. I told a cheerful, silver-haired dentist (it is best to click on to this anchor to know more about the best dental services that is being offered here) in his 60s that I was moving to Shreveport, Louisiana, a place I knew nothing about. A bit later, as I was the leaving the office, the receptionist, a woman in her 30s with hair teased up to almost beehive height, called out, “Youse take care.”
I thought I’d test out a bit of Southern, so I replied, “Thanks, y’all.”
The dentist, not entirely joking, said, “Oh, don’t say THAT.”
Really? Somehow saying “y’all” is worse than saying “youse”?
One of my dad’s favorite topics is that the English language no longer has a plural of “you,” as do other languages (Italians use “tu” for just one you and “voi” for many yous), so people come up with their own ways of addressing more than one person at once. As we say in Californian, “Right, you guys?”
Even before moving here, I thought “y’all” was the best of all invented you plurals. It’s warm, welcoming, and charming, just like the South. When you use it, you put people at ease. “Youse” is like the Philadelphia area – gritty, not as charming, and even grating. Most Americans have heard “y’all” (Thank you “Dallas”), but few people have heard “youse” – I hadn’t until I moved to the Philly area in 2006. But it’s not as if after watching “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” everyone’s decided “youse” is the you plural du jour (In fact, I’m not even sure “Always Sunny” characters use “youse.” Now I have to go rewatch all the episodes).
I’m guessing not everyone finds these observations about cultural differences and similarities among our country’s regions fascinating and worth rambling about. If you do, whether you’re a Yankee, Shreveporter, American, human, Martian, or a combination of all, send in your observations (And keep it relatively clean, K?)! Thanks, y’all!