re: #21 ibob
On rereading my comments, it is shocking how patriarchal and anachronistic the South sounds(and is). I tend to forget it is not normal since I deal with every day.
“Normal” is what is normal where you are. If you grew up in the South, as my mother did (not in the Deep South, though), then the kind of ‘refined manners’ still seen and esteemed at social occasions in the South would seem normal to you.