Friday, June 13, 2014

"Furriners" - then, and even now

"The mountaineers of the South are marked apart from all other folks by dialect, by customs, by character, by self-conscious isolation. So true is this that they call all outsiders 'furriners.' It matters now whether your descent be from Puritan or Cavalier, whether you come from Boston or Chicago, Savannah or New Orleans, in the mountains you are a 'furriner.'"

(from Our Southern Highlanders, by Horace Kephart)

This has changed somewhat since this book was written, but only somewhat. To this day it is common to hear in rural Arkansas, "You're not from around here, are you?"

No comments: