While we're waiting for the election returns

[David Bergdahl]

Did it strike anyone else as interesting that among the northern states
voting for Gore (from Minn > Wisc > Iowa > Illinois > Mich and then Penn
> Maine except NH) there's a noticeable gab formed by Indiana and Ohio?
In the 20th-century the border states of WV, KY & TN have become
southern.  I thought that in this first election of the 21st-century OH
& IND had joined them.  Certainly, southern Ohio & Hoosier-apex parts of
Indiana are southern culturally, even as far north as Indianapolis and
Columbus.  Carver suggests that the old Midland dialect area is a place
where northern and southern vocabulary overlap, "a transitional layer
between the Upper South and Lower North, which it overlaps" (174).

The Gore states of "the left coast," the upper Midwest centered on
Chicago and Minneapolis, and the old east centered on Philadelphia, NY &
Boston then define "northern" with the Atlantic and Gulf states (and the
expansion area of the great plains) and the mountain states "southern."
An interesting cultural configuration.

-- db
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David Bergdahl          http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl
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