Comment by echelon

I have been searching for this!

Thank you for reposting this, OP. I have been (w)racking my brain trying to find this article and used HN search dozens of times. I couldn't remember what the title was, or the specific terms "ask" and "guess", so it was impossible to find.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37182058

This is one of the chief cultural differences between Southern and Northern culture.

Southerners (not transplants) will "ask" without imposition: they "ask" when giving, and "guess" when receiving.

Any inversion of these norms is an affront to "Southern hospitality" and will be met with the equivalent "Bless Your Heart".

Ask what you can do for someone, never what you can have. Assume someone will do right by you (you should never have to ask), and if they don't - people say not so nice things about those folks.

I need to articulate this better when it's not 4 AM, but it's an almost perfect descriptor of the cultural differences.