not only that, in Springfield the “Partially Gelatinated, Non-Dairy, Gum-Based Beverage” is known as a “shake” in nearby Shelbyville. I mean, to my mind, you don’t know what you’re gettin’, but who knows how these things get started.
(@WearySky, I forgot that episode was a two-fer vis-a-vis regionalisms 
)
Well, I put my breath down (“sigh”, Tsimshian), point with my chin (Tlingit) to gusuk (Yupik - white devils) fools who don’t know what bear unuk (shit, Yupik) is that I came across this channel and pull on my red rubber tennies (Xtrufs, SE AK) to take a walk in liquid sunshine (rain, SE AK). Should also don my halibut jacket (Woolrich hunting shirt, SE AK). Y’alls (Texas panhandle, plural possessive) are obviously, like ('80s Valley) from outside (lower 48, Continental US, mainlanders)…
There are so many things that I have picked up in my life that I can not share in conversation that the stupid quiz puts me square in a triangle of all of the Mississippi tributaries and delta, which is somewhere I have never been. My kids say “Soda pop”, we don’t pronounce the whole pajamas but they are “jammies”. My doula said I sounded like I was from the Midwest, but that is the Alaskan influence (think Ms. Palin, yuck). The researchers need to take down their raised broom off their pickup bed (full hold of fish, SE AK) and work with folks on the slime line (just like it sounds, with fish) or in a packing plant, there is special language everywhere usually pertaining to blue color work where a lot of people need to describe specific aspects - just like lawyers have their own special language.
Oh, and the proper term is a parking strip for that lawn you have to slog through to get to the sidewalk.
I’m Canadian (Ottawa), and it placed me in the PNW. Is this typical? It would be interesting to see a map including both the US and Canada - I don’t feel like the border really divides the linguistics that much. I have a hard time distinguishing a Manitoban from a Minnesotan. Bob and Doug notwithstanding, what do Americans think Canadians sound like?
I would love to see one of these maps for Canada. I’ve lived in Alberta, BC and Ontario - and they all have major and minor differences in dialect.
There are also big differences in the way people talk depending on the audience. Most of the ‘good ol’ boys’ I grew up with can speak a fairly uninflected dialect when speaking to authority figures or just being polite. It is only slightly related to the way they speak to each other on a worksite or at a bar. I find myself switching dialects when I speak to my parents’ neighbours (Alberta farmers), my high school friends (redneck Alberta), my current neighbours (west coast hippy/yuppy/granolas), my colleagues (academics, NGOs, business types). Written phonetically the same concepts are expressed with different words, sentence structures and inflections.
anytime Dave Foley or Alex Trebeck say the “O” sound, I’m reminded that they’re damned furriners. soh-rry.
other than that, y’all sound like US mid-westerners, to my ear.
So much this.
has anyone spoofed their ip, or tried this from where they currently aren’t from?
I’m coming from a dutch IP and this quiz (I’ve tried it several times) nails me to New Jersey - the place in the U.S. I’ve lived the longest. I think it’s the combination of “Mischief Night”, “sneakers”, “subs” and “traffic circles.”
[quote=“JazzMan, post:5, topic:17523”]
I lived in Germany for a few years, in an area (Rhineland-Pfalz) with a very heavy dialect (“kleine” said “klee” (pronounced “clay”) or “zwo” not “zwei”) and the changes in pattern across the relatively small country of Germany are very pronounced.[/quote]
Stuttgart also has a very noticeable dialect.
[quote=“JazzMan, post:5, topic:17523”]
I have read that in England the dialects change over a much smaller distance than they do in the US.[/quote]
Very true. The distances are smaller, and regional language differences were already in existence hundreds of years before any English speakers showed up on the North American continent.
Yes, absolutely.
**JazzMan:
…the changes in pattern across the relatively small country of Germany are very pronounced.
… I have read that in England the dialects change over a much smaller distance than they do in the US.**
What you have going on in these two countries is that they have a depth of time that North American English is lacking. Travel used to be much harder and less common. Over the course of however many generations every little town had a chance to have its own linguistic drift.
Since the white settlement of North America there has been a lot of mixing of peoples, a lot of communication back and forth, people moving around, and the result is a much more homogenous language.
If you ran a wall around each state and isolated them for five or ten generations you’d come out with fifty distinctly different varieties of English, just like in Britain.
Hey! I’d also like an accent map for the UK (England being a part of the UK, and the UK on the whole being English speaking).
It’s been done. It turns out that UK English is evolving fairly quickly. My foreigners faint recollection is that among other things, BBC English is on the rise.
Not that different than Americans. They do have a different “O” though.
It was fun taking the test. It placed me at either Honolulu, San Jose or Miami which is either 11.831 km, 8.999 km or 7.637 km off the mark. (There, now you can triangulate my position. So much for privacy on the internet.)
So I guess I’ll answer ‘Honolulu’ from now on when someone in a BBS asks me.
My tendency to use “anymore” as a positive part of speech — I do “x” anymore — as opposed to purely using it in the negative — I don’t do “x” anymore — is part of the Midlands dialect.
I know a number of people in my hometown (Fort Worth, TX) who use anymore positively, but as a preamble – “Anymore, I do ‘X’”. I never even considered the possibility that it was part of a regional dialect. Fascinating!
Heck, there were a couple of young women working at the company I was with in Burlington, Ontario in the late '70s who came from a pair of small towns around Oldham that were about 5 miles apart. They had never met until they came to Canada, which isn’t too surprising, but what was surprising was the accents were about as far apart as they could be, and still be within the bounds of English accents.
I just took the quiz, and it nailed me square in the Milwaukee / Madison area (Waukesha, my home town, is about halfway between). And, for some reason, Salt Lake City.
I’ve known for some time that calling a water fountain a “bubbler” was regional, but I didn’t realize how specific it is to that very small area around Milwaukee. Turns out that Kohler manufactured a model called the “Bubbler” and was headquartered in - Sheboygan. “The more you know.”
Being from The Great Lakes (area) you probably said: “Paaahhp” or something similar. 
Not impressed.
It tells me I come from either Birmingham, Alabammy or Yonkers, New Yawk.
That’s what we call covering the spread.
Hmm. I live slightly north of the East-West line of the triangle, between Kansas City and Indianapolis - And diametrically opposite the southern tip of the triangle, which was Jackson Miss - A city I’ve driven past, but never set foot in.
Now, I just re-took the test, just to check something; Slightly different questions, and I’m now on a line between Indianapolis, Kansas City and…Albuquerque.
I’d better go take it again. I won’t rest until I’m dead center in a triangle comprising Taylorville Il, Leningrad and Canberra.
