Me too. Now only the American media could draw a map with some detail to the north, rather than a featureless void.
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So if youâre German and take this quiz:
New York, Washington DC or Raleigh. Weird.
The description in the quiz brought to my mind a Bobcatâan entirely different animal.
Seems like people whose English is directly influenced by Britain will end up in the North East.
NY metro area. Nailed it. Apparently my use of sneakers limited me to NY and New England, and the rest narrowed it down.
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As mentioned above, perhaps youâd think so. But I tried again and I definitely get the Bay Area (because fireflies, apparently).
I guess my family is from the SW (of England)âŚ
amateurs⌠my grandfather could tell which small village in Somerset (UK no NJ) people came from by the way they pronounced placenames
Nailed Worcester, Mass (where I grew up till 11). I knew I was profiled as soon as I saw bubbler, grinder and tennis shoes for answers.
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Iâm from Providence, Worcester and St Louis. That must have been one helluva night!
UK expat living in Detroit area ~25 years - it got me bang to rights. I answered truthfully, e.g. âtruckâ vs. âlorryâ, and âyou guysâ vs. what I wish was âyou lotâ (Christopher Eccleston voice of course). Would have said âplimmiesâ if given the choice for âshoes worn in gym class (PE!)â though. Glad at least a few full-blue we-donât-say-that-at-all-here maps came up - not completely Americanized yet!
Superb avatar by the way, @daneel! ;D
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I said fireflies, still got NE. Maybe it is a colony thing.
Iâm a native Montrealer, and they placed me in NYC, Miami, and Honolulu! Fascinating stuff. Service roads for life.
The quiz insists Iâm from northern New Jersey. I grew up in central New York (south of Syracuse), lived for three years in Washington, D.C. where I picked up the habit of saying âyâallâ and then moved to Minnesota in 1986. Not sure where New Jersey fits into any of that.
It pegged me as Rochester or Buffalo as well (I grew up in Mississauga, so not too far off) because I call wood lice âpotato bugsâ. It said Detroit because I call the night before Halloweâen âDevilâs Nightâ. Interesting, indeed.
It was laughably inaccurate for me. For some reason it wanted me to be from Santa Rosa, California. Iâll admit that I did live in Sunnyvale for a few years forty years ago but Iâm from Pennsylvania, have lived in Texas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Alaska, California, Nevada, and Tennessee for varying lengths of time. Perhaps the test just isnât up to the task of pinning me down.
I took the test and it suggested Yonkers, Jersey City and New York. I guess that makes sense. Iâm Dutch and New York used to be New Amsterdam.
I tried again and it came back NY or Yonkers. But this was based entirely on sneakers.
It pegged me pretty well. Boston, Worcester, Providence. (We buy grinders and my hometownâs bowling ally is of the candle pin variety ) Iâm pretty sure I pronounce âcotâ and âcaughtâ the same way but just posing the questions makes me question myself.
Also, I thought âyard saleâ was fairly universal with âgarage saleâ being an alternate. Apparently, not so much.
There were a few examples of pronunciations or terms where I could have made two choices easily. I hate questions that only give you one option to choose from. It got my state right but not a part I would want to live in.
Hereâs mine:
Like the other North-West European Islanders in the thread, It thought I was an odd Hawaii-California hybrid.
Which was surprising, because as soon as it gave me âLorryâ, âCar Boot Saleâ and âTrainersâ as options, I had expected the quiz to notice how blatantly non-American I was.
As to the result, I wonder what direction the Californian connection to my vocabulary runs? Have I picked up some terminology from US entertainment which is based there, or have we exported our idioms there?
And I havenât got a clue whatâs going on in central Wisconsin.
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