In a lot of social situations, I'd actually expect a buffer but a minor one. A "please" or a "Would you -" But depending on tone, situation, whatever, it wouldn't be necessary.
I dunno that these avoidantly polite speech patterns would have much to do with interactions between black and white people during Reconstruction. I mean, my impression is that black people weren't seen as equals *at all* and I dare say there was a lot of resentment. And Reconstruction was brief and pretty soon a lot of black people were sharecroppers and things weren't hugely different from the way they'd been, in some ways.
I'd look for the roots being in the cultural identity of the Southern upper classes, pre- and post-Civil War, as contrasted with Northern upper classes. Southerners being genteel, Northerners priding themselves on being hard-headed businessmen. And what formed the basis for those manners, during the colonial period and after ...
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Date: 13 Jan 2011 05:43 pm (UTC)I dunno that these avoidantly polite speech patterns would have much to do with interactions between black and white people during Reconstruction. I mean, my impression is that black people weren't seen as equals *at all* and I dare say there was a lot of resentment. And Reconstruction was brief and pretty soon a lot of black people were sharecroppers and things weren't hugely different from the way they'd been, in some ways.
I'd look for the roots being in the cultural identity of the Southern upper classes, pre- and post-Civil War, as contrasted with Northern upper classes. Southerners being genteel, Northerners priding themselves on being hard-headed businessmen. And what formed the basis for those manners, during the colonial period and after ...
Um, this is mostly supposition ...