Friday 26th February 2010 - The Last Glasgow

          After a long and leisurely breakfast, it's off to the Thomasville Genealogical, History, and Fine Arts Library.  The very name is teeming with grown-up ladies, and I check one out as I come through the door.  Before I know where I am, there are so many old maps and books around me that I'm sneezing uncontrollably.

          The maps, from 1908 to 1995, all show Glasgow. 

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          Where the western states were divided up by townships and ranges, Georgia, one of the original 13 colonies, appears to have been divided into Land (and Military) Districts, which, in turn, were divided into lots.  A settlement of Scots, Mc Millans, McIntoshes, McLeods and McKinnons, appear to have named this district Glasgow about 1826.  And created a village in it also called Glasgow.  That would put it pretty-well beyond doubt that it was named for Glasgow, Scotland.  It was a significant village for quite a long time, and even had a Post Office, but it now exists only as a church and cemetery.

          By the time of the, em, War between the States, Georgia, with a population of about one million, was 50% white, 50% slave.  Presumably because here in South-West Georgia they were so near the Gulf, they feared invasion, so there was a "Glasgow Independent Home Guard" for (to quote the Thomasville Southern Enterprise of July 1861) "Home protection, to quell any servile insurrection (nudge, nudge), or to subdue any invading foe": so not quite the Home Guard that Captain Mainwaring would have recognised, then.

 

          Later that night, daunted by the wonderful beer provision in the Texas Steakhouse, I opted for the the other salon on the corner.  This is called "Steel City", and is themed as a Pittsburgh bar ( that's a bit like having a Wolverhampton-themed pub in Britain).  It turns out to be an even greater Lenten test, since, among the thirteen draft beers they sell is, would you believe, London Pride.  They also sell a long list of bottled beers, which is really the only way to get 'real' beer in the US.  I get into a conversation with a man at the bar, and he insists on buying me my cola.  With things like cola, you only get to buy one, and they keep topping it up.

          The restrooms say "Yinz Galz" and Yinz Guyz" on the door.  Apparently there is a Pittsburgh dialect, which is epitomised by this "yinz" (or"yunz").  Like the Glaswegian "youse", it is the plural of "you".  The web sites which discuss Pittsburghese claim this is just like "y'all", which is used all across the south.  If that's true, then there seems to have been a remarkable development, since people say "y'all come back now" to me, making it singular, and thus reintroducing the confusion it was designed to remove.