AkureiKnight
Rubber - Mmm I dunno, that would be kinda stereotypical. I know a few nice southern people who are pretty smart.
3nodding Oh, I know plenty of southern people who are VERY smart. However, they were born and raised here and still have little to no southern accent. For one, speech patterns tend to micmic thought patterns (i.e. the more intelligent you are, the faster you think, therefore the faster you talk); I'm not saying ALL the time, I just said they "tend" to. The southern accent is largely characterized by a "drawl"... tendency to speak very slowly and draw out even short words, y'know. Even if people speak with a southern lilt to their words, if they don't have the "drawl," the accent is still much less noticeable (I know a lot of people like this, including all of my siblings, who all only have regular high school educations). Personally, I had the same southern drawl when I was little, but starting in the 3rd grade I began reading a different book every day, and was in classes aimed at higher grade levels by the time I was in 5th grade, foreign language classes by sixth, so my accent faded and was completely gone by the time I was 12 or 13. I take special care to pronounce my words correctly; foreign language (pronunciation = crucial x.x') and more advanced English courses = better grammar and pronunciation ("If you don't know how to form a plural posessive noun by now, you should probably get out of this program [glare]." -teachers x.x'). I've noticed the same thing amongst the students in my classes and the college graduates here. However, MOST of the students (there is the minority group of "smart-but-lazy") who are in "regular" classes here (the ones who honestly don't know the difference between "its" and "it's," can't spell "tomato," or will put "b4" in a formal essay? The educational system SUCKS here, I'm telling you.) graduate high school with, honestly, around a 7th grade education; one can hardly understand a word they're saying. They either were never taught proper grammar and pronunciation or just don't care enough to use it (or a combination of both).
Ironically, they're the same ones who call people "fags" or snicker and yell "oooo, get a room, lesbos!" at two girls walking any closer than two feet apart... -___-' so my sympathy for their educational plight is very limited. I suppose an open mind IS a mark of intelligence, because I've never met a highly educated "gays-must-die" conservative. Mild conservatives, yes. "Gays-must-die" conservatives, no. All of our higher-level teachers and pretty much all of our AP / advanced students are quite accepting. I'd be more comfortable coming out to one of my teachers than I would one of my family members.
Oh, and our graduation exams? You only have to get 40% of the questions right to pass. All of my friends passed U.S. history grad exam when we hadn't even taken U.S. history yet.
It's no wonder people here hate gays. -__- They don't know any better.
Anyway, I'm biased; I hate the south
biggrin Edit - Wanted to point out that I don't know what part of Alabama you're from... I'm from the VERY BOTTOM, right next to the coast, the deep, DEEP south, so if you're from the more northern part, there's a good chance things are very different between our original locations.
xd
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