Dialect Maps

[december21st]

I love this sort of thing and have to share:

Found these really fascinating dialect maps for the continental US

They've got 122 entries with a variety of words and phrases, from "how do you pronounce 'coupon'" to "what do you call a carbonated soft drink" to "what city is 'the City'"? miscellaneous

Comments

[lone_pyramid]

I clicked on some of the questions simply because I couldn't figure out what they were talking about, or because I couldn't think of an alternative to what I called it and was curious about the options. (We seem to generally line up with either Michigan and Ohio or Minnesota for terms of things.)

I took an online survey about how I pronounce different words and it said I was from Minnesota.

[december21st]

(Your icon made me laugh.)

I wonder how much dialectical influence is stopped at the border. (Is 'dialectical' a word? Did the survey take making up words into account?)

Did you ever watch the movie Fargo, and if so, did you think the people in it talked funny?

[lone_pyramid]

That icon would be my tattoo if I could get past the whole pain thing.

I'd imagine that a number of words/phrases and sounds would be similar where there's a lot of traffic back and forth over the border, but it's hard to say. There are always going to be thing unique to various regions. (Not everyone knows what you mean when you order a double-double, or what the 2-4 weekend is.)

I've not seen Fargo, though I seem to recall from ads that they had quite a pronounced accent. (It's entirely possible that I'm just bad at judging various sounds and clicked incorrect answers for how I actually pronounce things. I do not have an ear for music/accents/etc.)

[december21st]

(Not everyone knows what you mean when you order a double-double, or what the 2-4 weekend is.)

Like me, for example. I don't know what either of those terms means.

[bluewillowtree]

Wow, I just spent way too much time on that site and will spend more when I'm in an actual computer instead of my phone. I'm in total agreement on the fascination of those types of studies. In pronunciation, I'm almost pure Delaware. But I'm even more interested by the "what do you call this?" questions where I answered something different from the norm, but realized when I saw the answers that I used to use the Delaware standard and have changed terms (from "rubber band" to "hair tie," for example) in the years since I lived there. It's fun to ponder the evolution of my own dialect, especially since I mostly didn't realize it had happened.

Thank you!!

[december21st]

It is great fun, isn't it?

[lone_pyramid]

I noted the 'hair tie' thing too, if only because we tend to call them 'hair elastics' or sometimes 'hair band', which were not options IIRC.

Of course, I'm not American, so some deviation is to be expected. :)

I'll stop butting into your conversation now.