American Dialect Quiz

[zitronenhai]

A little bit ago, this American dialect quiz was floating around on Facebook. People who have lived in a lot of different regions of the US, or have lived abroad, got some less predictable results. My results pinned me dead-on.

Comments

[daphnep]

They didn't have a choice for just "drive through liquor store", either, for those of us who don't need a euphemism.
I think you make a good point about changing pronunciation as we grow--I got really weird answers for that quiz, because so many of the questions just confused me. Like the yard/garage sale one. Absolutely, the various terms mean different and non-interchangeable things. And in cities with no yards or garages, they are by necessity stoop sales or porch sales. How silly would it be to throw a "garage sale" in my present (urban) neighborhood?

So I appreciate your distinctions and clarifications...as well as your justification for lawyer. Loy-er never makes sense to me, so to avoid being mocked as an adult I just say "attorney".

[zitronenhai]

I guess I don't see "party barn" as a euphemism. It doesn't seem like a bland, innocuous alternative to the term "drive-through liquor store."

Then, of course, we must consider that some of these structures look like barns. Others appear to be repurposed car washes. The ones I have visited have looked... like barns. So that might explain something about that.

[daphnep]

That makes sense! The ones I know are from Arizona, and they're definitely not shaped like barns.

[chezmax]

Coming from a province which is highly puritanical about liquor sales, the idea of a drive-through liquor store is horrifying to me. :)

[zitronenhai]

My state is semi-puritanical about liquor; I say that because they've loosened up over the years, but we still have some stilly laws, and I think we still have some dry counties.

One of the party barns I went through on a trip to Texas filled our cooler with ice and packed our purchases into the cooler! I felt like a princess, just sitting there.

[chezmax]

Even if there isn't a garage, they're often called garage sales here, though yard sale isn't unheard of.

[zitronenhai]

I think the favored generic term here is "garage sale," too, but if the stuff turns out to be in the yard and there is no garage involved, I will end up referring to that particular sale as a "yard sale."