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Vol. 24, No.2Editor's Note Springhouse can look back on almost a quarter a century of publishing, enough time to allow the editor to mention those abiding truths he has learned by heart over the years. But enough of that—besides soul searching is rumored to be bad for the digestion. Let us venture into more promising territory, such as why many of us use the large "S" in the word southern, especially when that word immediately proceeds that other familiar word, Illinois. Why, one asks, since the good folks of central Illinois and northern Illinois seem content to use lower case when writing about their chunk of this big arrow-head-shaped state or ours? Why should we who live south of Effingham be given special dispensation to haul out the big "S" any time we feel like it? "Because we're different from other Illinoisans, that's why," so runs an argument commonly voiced though not in exactly those words. Those northern dudes and gals are hung up on prairies and Abraham Lincoln and Chicago, while we, some of us anyway, take a certain contrarian pride in the Shawnee National Forest and our sometimes excessively colorful historical past, and the fact that we are part of the Prairie State in name only. We're just different, that's all, and if you don't think so, go to Makanda when that hamlet nestled in the Valley of the Arts puts on its Vulture Fest. Or venture into the Garden of the Gods where the massive sandstone named Camel Rock, stares vacantly as though meditating forever about Infinity. Down here we're about as much Prairie State as Idaho, never mind what the pundits out of Springfield have to say about it. We are us and they are them and that's all there is to it. Now,
having said all that, let it further we said that Springhouse the
magazine chooses the lower "s" while readers of said
magazine cling to the big "S." Believing in live and let
live, the people behind the magazine have decided to have it both ways
and use both forms in the same issue. I mention this because recently
a friend of Springhouse politely chided us for not choosing one
or the other. We are, he said, sending out a signal of uncertainty.
(Well, he didn't actually say that, but something along that line.)
The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was absolutely
right. However, this is southern/Southern Illinois, so with
uncertainty and blatant
fence-straddling as our guiding light (talk about mixing
metaphors until they turn to mud!) we have decided to Gary DeNeal |
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