#north-eastern states

[heartshapedcaskett]

Elizabethtown, North Carolina

[inatungulates]

Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whale Orcinus orca

Observed by andrealikesbird, CC BY-NC

[thecurioustale]

The "Middle West"

I was recently watching Trump speak (not something I typically do 🤢), and the most interesting thing he said had nothing to do with anything he was actually talking about: It was that he used the term Middle West to refer to that generally north-central part of the United States, centered on the Mississippi River, that is neither the South nor the Northeast (nor the Mid-Atlantic, but that's really just a subcategory of the Northeast that Northeasterns use to not get lumped in with each other).

We all know it today as the Midwest. But in times past it was much more commonly known as the Middle West.

(Tangent: It is also one of many geographical region-name reminders of our national East Coast beginnings, as America has like six different kinds of "West": the Midwest, the Southwest, the (Pacific) Northwest, the Mountain West / Interior West, the West Coast / Pacific West—and that's not counting the deprecated terms (such as "Far West," i.e. distinguished from the Midwest) or the old Northwest (which would've referred to places like Ohio and (what we know as) West Virginia)!)

Over the course of the 20th century, "Midwest" became an increasingly common form of the term, eventually overtaking "Middle West" in popularity and, by our lifetimes, completely replacing it. The only people who still use "Middle West" today are very old. I'm only aware of the term's existence because I'm a fan of midcentury media and if you go watch (for example) old Dragnet episodes from the 1950s you'll hear the term used.

I was looking at the Google Ngram Viewer to get a sense of the relative usage frequencies of these terms, and I noticed something interesting: Not only has "Middle West" been driven almost extinct from active usage, but "Midwest" itself has also declined precipitously in the 21st century. People today are not calling the Midwest the "Midwest," at least not with the frequency and relevancy they once did. I was curious if this was another permutation of the usage, so I also looked up "Midwestern" (which I included in the link above), thinking that maybe people nowadays are calling it the clunkier "the Midwestern states" / "the Midwestern US," but the adjectival has declined in step with "Midwest." It really does seem to be that people are just using this geographical category less often.

Perhaps unsurprisingly: the sociopolitical cohesiveness of the Midwest has significantly diminished over time. I think most Midwesterners would still recognize and affiliate with the term if you applied it of them to their faces, but increasingly I think many of them do not think of it in their daily lives as a personal or cultural identifier. Which has many fascinating implications that I'm not going to get into.

(Another Tangent: I feel like I've talked about specifically this "Middle West / Midwest" thing on Tumblr before, but I feel that way about half of everything because after all I've been writing down my thoughts for over 20 years and I've been having thoughts for considerably longer than that, and it's often not clear to me what I've talked about publicly and where.)

Anyway, this entire post is really just me scratching the itch of verbal brain noise about the orange guy using a term in a public address that I never hear people use in the present day. A little piece of lost language, hearkening back to a completely different era and world.

[positive-chemtrail]

this may sound weird but if ANYONE lives in rural areas of the north eastern united states (vermont, maine, new york, new hampshire massachusetts somewhere around that area) wants explain and talk about what small towns there are like and the people and general vibes of that area that would be cool as hell. i’m writing something that i would like to be set in that area, and i want to get an accurate vibe for the setting.

[faguscarolinensis]

Xylocopa virginica on Salvia involucrata / Eastern Carpenter Bee on Roseleaf Sage at the JC Raulston Arboretum at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC

[nando161mando]

[starryneitz]

Mr. 34 firing the fem leader of the Coast Guard is a prime example of sexism because he clearly doesn't understand how powerful women are. Hell hath no fury of an Appalachian woodswoman.

[scolek]

i was thinking about the wisconsin incident* in the shower today so ive spent the afternoon doing geography quizzes on sporcle

[irbcallmefynn]

The worst part about it being cold out is that all the water pipes are cold so when I turn on the hot water it takes like. A full minute to start warming up, so I can basically only wash my hands with cold water :(

[itsalwaysdark]

the world if sims 4 had more lots per world

[jellyfishjuliet]

i didnt realize i picked up a british book, just thought it was a murder mystery set in NEW england, like massachewsits or sumthin, but no. it's in england. had to rearrange my entire mental worldview to fit the murder into its proper setting.

[travelella]

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Memphis Botanic Garden, Cherry Road, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Joshua J. Cotten

Scientific name: Papilio glaucus

Family: Papilionidae

Class: Insecta

Order: Lepidoptera

Average size: 3.12 to 5.5 inches ufl.edu

Domain: Eukaryota

Genus: Papilio

Papilio glaucus, the eastern tiger swallowtail, is a species of butterfly native to eastern North America. It is one of the most familiar butterflies in the eastern United States, ranging north to southern Ontario, Canada, and is common in many different habitats.

[inatungulates]

Eastern North Pacific long-beaked common dolphin Delphinus bairdii bairdii

With California brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis californicus and western gull Larus occidentalis

Observed by lalagregg, CC BY-NC

[bipdf]

heaven: favorite color combinations?

dreamy: is there any snow where you live?

bubblegum: favorite cities? tea: favorite films?

heaven - already answered.

dreamy - unfortunately, no.

bubblegum - bangalore, pune, akhnoor, visakhapatnam, chennai, chandigarh, agra, port blair. (there are probably many but these are all the ones i could remember.)

tea - oh, there are many. i'll make a list and post it here when i get time.

[faguscarolinensis]

Xylocopa virginica on Salvia involucrata / Eastern Carpenter Bee on Roseleaf Sage at the JC Raulston Arboretum at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC

[6ghassan]

In Between Painted Hills - Oregon, USA by Jos Buurmans Via Flickr: The last rays of sunlight on the mountain plateau in between layered, deep red hills of the John Day Fossil Beds.