Southerns vs. southerners

[Mark Odegard]

>I see that the earliest citations for Southerners, Southerns and Southrons
>given in the Dict of Americanisms are all from 1827 or 1828.

All of these are variations on a genuine ethnonym.

'Southron' is the one that interests me. I think it is a *deliberate*
misspelling, and equally, a *deliberate* 'mispronunciation', when one
considers the rules that govern r-dropping.

There are many patriotic Southerners who are actually glad the South lost
the Civil War, much in the same way many patriotic Scots are glad Bonnie
Prince Charlie's rebellion failed. History would have been less blesséd. The
South and North would have been mutually poorer, just as England and
Scotland would have been mutually poorer.

As the historians and re-enacters will tell you, the late unpleasentness was
not so much the North winning as the South losing. Missionary Ridge is
impossible to understand except in the personality of Braxton Bragg and Jeff
Davis' perverse trust in him; the two together lost the War Between the
States.

Yeah, my ggg-grandpappy was a Southron who got himself killed (pretty much
beside General Zollicoffer) for his country 19 Jan 1862.

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com