Molly Quinn (from Castle) Makes me smile....

[blahblahblah]

Yeah, I'm not from the South (born and raised in CA, currently living in NYC), and I didn't take any offense to her statement. I agree that she was just playing with the Southern stereotype. I make jokes like that all the time - er, not about the South, but for stereotyped groups that I do belong to.

[WillyNilly]

I guess for me its just ingrained.  I used to work with a man who did outreach for disadvantaged African American youth (he was black himself).  The office I worked in was mostly female.  He would make sexist comments all the time.  I called him on it.  He said he couldn't keep track of what was sexist or not.  So I said "replace 'women' with 'black people' - is it racist?"  He got the point.

Well replace "being from the South" with "being white" - is her statement racist?  Replace it with "being rich" is it classist?  Replace it with "being female" is it sexist? 

The statement implies that she has manners because she is Southern and those who are not southern are perhaps lacking because of it.  It was an unnecessary comment, she could have just said "I do not want to assume anything about being invited" alone and it would have been just as powerful a comment without any digs about having some sort of superiority because of where she was born/raised.

Like I said though, its just ingrained in the way I hear things to react like this.

[wheeitsme]

 
The statement implies that she has manners because she is Southern and those who are not southern are perhaps lacking because of it.

The statement implies that she has manners because she is Southern.  I believe that any other implication is in the minds of those who choose to read something else into it. 

I believe that reading more into what was said than what was said says more about the person hearing the statement than the person making the statement.

Which you pointed out.

Like I said though, its just ingrained in the way I hear things to react like this.

My 2 cents.

[WillyNilly]

If one becomes mannerly from being Southern, and one is not Southern... what then is the implication? She is saying that Souther makes her more polite somehow. More polite then whom?

What one can asertain from my reading of her statement is that I apply logic to qualifiers. She quailified that her manners are because she is Southern. She is therefore saying that people nationwide are not to be included in generalization of polite people.

If "southern" = "automatically polite" then "not southern" = "not automatically polite".

Of course anyone is free to interpt differently, but people should be aware that many others do hear statements like that as I do. When you say "I'm [whatever] so I'm [better]" the implication is that people who are not [whatever] are not as good.

[PeasNCues]

I think it was a joke playing on the southern politeness stereotype.

[wheeitsme]

If one becomes mannerly from being Southern, and one is not Southern... what then is the implication? She is saying that Souther makes her more polite somehow. More polite then whom?

What one can asertain from my reading of her statement is that I apply logic to qualifiers. She quailified that her manners are because she is Southern. She is therefore saying that people nationwide are not to be included in generalization of polite people.

If "southern" = "automatically polite" then "not southern" = "not automatically polite".

If statement A is true, it does not mean that everything else in untrue.

All that means is that statement A is true.

I remember a math class in college where they taught us tautology (being able to prove a logical statement mathematically)

And I remember a problem in the textbook:  "If you are out of Schlitz then you are out of beer - True or False"

If you are out of Schlitz does not automatically imply you are out of beer.  There are other beers you might have.  Therefore the statement  "If you are out of Schlitz then you are out of beer" is false.

You are not applying logic.  True mathematical logic does not imply that "Being from the South I do not want to assume anything about being invited"  means that if you are not from the South you will assume you are invited.



(edited for my spelling)

[WillyNilly]

Except you are leaving out my qualifier "automatically" and are not taking into account verbal logic employs semantics, unlike mathematical logic which does not.

The statement is qualifying that "southern" doesn't mean "polite", but rather it means automatically or implicitly polite.  Sure other types of people can be polite, but they are not presumed to be polite by her statement.

If Schlitz = a beer, not all beer then being out of Schlitz does not make you out of beer.

But if Schlitz = good beer* versus other beers, then to make a statement "we are out of Schlitz" implies in verbal, not mathematical, logic, that you are out of good beer.  Otherwise why bother to qualify what kind of beer you are out of?  It becomes excessive verbiage, which is generally not a good thing (hence editing being a whole profession, equally important to writing).

Semantics do matter.  They might not to you, and that's ok.  But to me, her statement was ruder then it was polite.  She qualified her manners in such a way as to come across, to me, as polarizing. 

* All hypothetical of course, since I do not agree with the premise Schlitz = good beer 

[wheeitsme]

Except you are leaving out my qualifier "automatically" and are not taking into account verbal logic employs semantics, unlike mathematical logic which does not.

The statement is qualifying that "southern" doesn't mean "polite", but rather it means automatically or implicitly polite.  Sure other types of people can be polite, but they are not presumed to be polite by her statement.

If Schlitz = a beer, not all beer then being out of Schlitz does not make you out of beer.

But if Schlitz = good beer* versus other beers, then to make a statement "we are out of Schlitz" implies in verbal, not mathematical, logic, that you are out of good beer.  Otherwise why bother to qualify what kind of beer you are out of?  It becomes excessive verbiage, which is generally not a good thing (hence editing being a whole profession, equally important to writing).

Semantics do matter.  They might not to you, and that's ok.  But to me, her statement was ruder then it was polite.  She qualified her manners in such a way as to come across, to me, as polarizing. 

* All hypothetical of course, since I do not agree with the premise Schlitz = good beer 

But now you are implying something that wasn't said.  And if someone was saying something in such a way as to imply that they have manners, wouldn't it be correct (and good manners) to also assume that if they had manners enough to make statement A true, that they also have the good manners to assume that they were not the only ones with manners?


...and while I don't really drink beer, my husband agrees with your Schlitz premise.   

[immadz]

I read it like WillyNilly did. I think its rude to imply that one has manners because one comes from a certain country or region. Just as rude to imply that one doesn't have them because one is from a different country. " She is such a tactless person. She can't help it she is from State X." is just as rude as saying " I am from Y, of course, I have manners."

[PeterM]

" She is such a tactless person. She can't help it she is from State X." is just as rude as saying " I am from Y, of course, I have manners."

I don't think I could possibly disagree with that statement more. The second statement does not imply that people from places other than Y do not have manners. Any evidence that it does would have to come from either the tone of the statement or the mind of the listener/reader, and given that there's no actual tone in a written statement and that the statement was both extremely simple and deliberately broadcast over the internet by someone in a profession that requires public goodwill for success, I have a very hard time believing she intended her tweet to be interpreted as, "Everyone who isn't from the South is rude."

[Flora Louise]

If a Catholic jokes about his Catholic guilt, is he saying no other people feel guilt?

[immadz]

If a Catholic jokes about his Catholic guilt, is he saying no other people feel guilt?

No he is saying that Catholics have a tendency to feel guilt for regular actions not that others don't feel guilt. If a Catholic says, " You know I am catholic, hence am a moral human being." to an atheist then I would definitely find it distasteful. It would imply to me that he felt that he associated being catholic to being moral and was making a judgement about those not catholic.

[wheeitsme]

In the town I grew up in, I could say "I am (my mother's name)'s daughter.  I would never (pick bad manners violation here)."

No one there would ever assume that I was implying that anyone else didn't have good manners.  For one thing, having identified myself as someone with good manners, I would never do something so horribly rude as assume everyone else doesn't have good manners too.  For another thing, my mother's manners and her stance on good manners was well known.  Identifying myself as her daughter assured people that I had good manners too.

I have to admit that I am starting to get kind of sad that there are people who jump to negative implied conclusions about others based on nothing more than a pride in where they learned their manners.

[Flora Louise]

If an accountant says, "I know I tend to be anal about things, but I'm an accountant, I'm very detail-oriented." Is he saying only accountants are detail-oriented?

[ettiquit]

If a crazy cat lady says "Being a crazy cat lady, I only feed my 72 cats albacore tuna", does that mean I have to be a crazy to give my cats tuna?  And a lady?