Tips for Southerners moving North

1. Save all your beef fat. You will be instructed later how to use it.

2. If you forget a Northerner's name, refer to him (or her) as "Love"

3. Just because you can't drive on snow and ice does not mean we always have to give you lifts everywhere.

4. If you do run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in > the cab of a four wheel drive with a 12-pack of Carly Special and a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them. Just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.

5. Don't be surprised to find video rentals and bait in the same store.

6. Do not try to buy fresh pasta. Thump in gob tends to offend..

7. If it can't be fried in lard, it ain't worth cooking.

8. Remember: "Us" is singular. "Thaa" is plural. "Thaas" is plural possessive.

9. There is nothing sillier than a Southerner imitating a northern accent, unless it is a northerner imitating a Brummie accent.

10. Get used to hearing, "Tha not from around here, are tha?"

11. People walk slower.

12. Don't be worried that you don't understand anyone. They don't understand you either.

13. The first Northern expression to creep into a transplanted Southerner's vocabulary "me ducks", Eighty-five percent end their new northern influenced dialect with this expression. One hundred percent are in denial about it.

14. The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.

15. Be advised: The "He were a southern bugger" ia a legal defence up here.

16. If attending a funeral in the north take your baseball hat off when everyone else does.

17. If you hear a Northern kid exclaim, "Ayup, come and look at this!" stay out of his way. These are likely the last words he will say before the explosion.

18. Most Northerners do not use turn signals, and they ignore those who do. In fact, if you see a signal blinking on a car with a northern licence plate, you may rest assured that it was on when the car was purchased.

19. Southerners can be identified by the spit on the inside of their car's windscreen that comes from yelling at other drivers.

20. The summer wardrobe you always brought out in April can wait til June.

21. If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the most minuscule accumulation of sun, your presence is required at the local chemist. It does not matter if you need anything from there, it is just something you're supposed to do.

22. Satellite dishes are very popular in the North. When you purchase one, it is to be positioned directly in front of your caravan. This is logical, bearing in mind that the dish cost considerably more than the caravan and should, therefore, be displayed.

23. Blizzards and Northerners going through a divorce have a lot in common. In either case, you know someone is going to lose a caravan.

24. Leeds does NOT have a castle, no matter how often you ask us.

25. In Northern churches you will hear the hymn, "Come All Ye Faithful". You will also hear expressions such as, "Bugger me, Lord", "God knows", "Jesus wept!" and "God help the poor cow ".

26. As you are cursing the person driving 15 mph in a 55 mph zone, directly in the middle of the road, remember, many folks learned to drive on a model of vehicle known as a Reliant Robin, and this is the proper speed and lane position for the vehicle.

27. You can ask a Northerner for directions, but unless you already know the positions of key piles of rubble, canals, coal mines, railway crossings, and where factories used to stand, you're better off trying to find it yourself.

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