The maps here are of how words are spoken in different regions of the USA, some maps are about different terms for certain thing in some regions. I know we have had threads like this in the past but some of these maps cover words we haven't talked about before (i.e. mayonnaise, crayon and what do you call a long sandwich, is there a differece between a freeway and a highway?). There are 22 US maps, there are meant to be another 100 maps on Joshua Katz's (the creator of these a linguistic maps) own site but it seems his site is having problems at the moment
Yes, this is very accurate. Hell, California English is pretty much becoming its own thing now. I love the highway/freeway one. Here in southern California, a highway is just a large main street with intersections and traffic lights and whatnot. A freeway is vastly different.
Interesting maps. Some of those just had me doing a double take, but it was accurate for where I am, which is Texas.
Heh, a native Californian sent me this today because of some of the things I say differently. It's difficult for me to say how accurate it is even for me personally because of the gradient around Chicago. Also there is not a map to explain the phenomenon known as "hella" that is slowly making its way into my brain.
Looks pretty accurate! I found the one about what "the City" means to be very interesting. In my area that is the name we often use to reference San Francisco.
Hella is one of those words that sounds stupid to outsiders, but once you integrate it into your vocabulary you wonder how you possibly formed coherent sentences without it. It just makes sense!
Yes! I need to get out of here before I start using it and then end up sounding stupid to everyone in Illinois! Edit: I think anyone near or inside a major city would probably use "The City" to refer to what's closest. We use that for Chicago and I've noticed that people use it for SF out here.
Born and raised in Virginia, right on the border of a lot of these linguistic divides. I pronounce pecan puh-KAHN, with the exception of PEE-can pie. I say "soda," to me "pop" means a fruity soda like Fanta. I've used both care-a-mel and car-mel, same with pa-JAM-as and pa-JAH-mas. And while I always say "traffic circle," in my head I think of it as coming to a spoon in the road.
Hmmm. As a Californian I would say they are mostly right. Although as a Northern Californian I always used highway and never heard freeway much until I moved to SoCal. Plus the Bowie/Boowie difference just makes me think of the Parliament song P-Funk Wants To Get Funked Up.
On the "You guys" thing, regionally I've often heard "Youse Guys", though that tends to be a North Eastern Canadian dialect.
Yes, that map is correct. Living in SW Ohio, I'm right on the border regarding how things are said. I usually speak the proper pronunciations, but that's due to the vocabulary, and also to my years in choir, where we took great pains to properly pronounce words. That said, having a southern background, I'm more apt to slip into certain habits when I'm being inform. For example, when I refer to a group of people, I usually say "you guys, you folks, or you all." Words like "mayonnaise," and "crayon," are always enunciated properly. When it comes to referencing a sweetened carbonated beverage, I will usually say "soda," but I have used "pop," "soda pop," and "soft drink" as well, depending on the setting.
For my area, central Kentucky, the data appears at least mostly accurate. Before signing off on it, though, I'd have to drill down into it, to see what are exactly meant by certain questions and how exactly the data was gathered. For example, in the question 'Can you call coleslaw "slaw"?', the answer is clearly yes in my area, as indicated in the map. However, the caption for that picture says, "The South is also really into slaw. The North and West call it coleslaw." Well, that's not an accurate description of my area. According to the coloration, my area belongs with "The South". However, while, it's true, we can call it slaw just fine, most of the time, in the city, such as on restaurant menus, it's called coleslaw or possibly actually two words, as cole slaw. So, what's the actual point here? Sure, we can call it slaw, but in my particular area, we're not necessarily "into it". Probably whoever wrote the article (Walter Hickey) was just being cute, and the "can" in the question (as opposed to "do") just indicates an option, which would be fine. Like I said, though, it's a question I have, due to the presentation. I'd say that whether it's spoken of in a restaurant has a bearing on the frequency of usage. Speaking of "the city", as I did above, that brings up another issue. When we say "the city", we sure as fuck don't mean New York City. "The" city is just the biggest city in the area, the one that dwarfs everything around it and that "all roads lead to", which around here would mean Lexington. Further out, "the city" could even be facetiously used to refer to some little town, the only sizable one around for dozens of miles. People drive "into the city" all the time, and they're not going to New York. It's very clear when you're in, and out of, the city; it's night and day: urban and rural. So, I really doubt that the map should be as pink as it is shown, around here. It's likely much bluer than that, meaning "other". But, again, how the question is actually asked to gather the data could have a bearing on that. For example, is this a multiple choice question that capitalizes City in the question and feeds you New York City as one of the choices? That would bias the results and not reflect how people really talk. Also, exactly where the data was gathered, and how it was extrapolated in between clusters to colorize the whole map, could also have a bearing on why it seems noticeably off on this point in my area. You can see evidence of what I'm talking about in south central Kentucky, in the blue patch there, but I think the blue is really much more widespread than that. However, for the most part, at least, it seems pretty accurate. Very interesting.
I always joke that the way you tell North Jersey from South Jersey is this: If I ask you what the city is and you respond with "New York," you are from North Jersey. If I ask you what the city is and you respond with "What the hell do you mean, there are lots of cities," you are from South Jersey. Essentially, this is in response to those who say there is a Central Jersey. While I agree there is a center of New Jersey, it's a question of whether people look to New York or Philadelphia. Yes, but it's fairly complicated. I can post something tonight when I get links from my brother, but it has a lot to do with settlement patterns. The Appalachian mountains were settled by Scots-Irish, the tidewater and the deep south is fairly English, Philadelphia is English, but is also Irish and German, New York had quite a bit of Dutch thrown into the mix, New England is English as well, but it's a different area of England (where people there still sound like they have the same accent), and the Northern accent is supposedly heavily influenced by Scandinavian immigrants. This is a terrible oversimplification. The maps are accurate although a bit imprecise. It would be nice to mouse over things to see the percentage breakdown. For example, I pronounce crayon as "cray-ahn," which is listed as the majority pronunciation in the Delaware valley. However, there is an extremely large minority who say "cran."
Interesting. Would be funny to see them do this in Norway. Over here dialects vary a lot from town to town. A place less than a 3 hours drive away from me is a dialect nobody understands unless they're from there, and a lot of the dialects are difficult to some to understand even if they've lived in Norway all their lives. And this is a small country, about 5 million people live here. "British" English is also full of dialects. And not just the variance of English, Irish and Scottish. There are some very weird dialects in British English. Dialect is an interesting subject to me, perhaps because in Norway your dialect tells people a lot about you. In my town/city people can tell where in town I am from just after a few sentences. Sadly, the "Arendals" dialect seems to be dying. Kids these days are embarrassed to speak like that and convert to an Oslo dialect, which is often seen as "pretty".
It seems that Joshiua Katz's maps are based on maps of the research done by Prof Bert Vaux which was published in 2002. I have found all 122 of the orginal maps here which also gives details of the participants in this survey and it give percentages for each word and saying.