Say what?

[Heid the Ba]

These maps amused me. They show how different regions of the US pronounce various words, and what terms different areas use for different things. I don't use some of the terms but of the ones I do most are pronounced like they are in Northern states. Two things stood out, Southern Florida is really part of the North-East and I am surprised that "sneakers" isn't more widely used.

I will however defend to the death my right to call sweetened, carbonated beverages "ginger", regardless of flavour. Eastern heretics who call them "juice" must be hunted down and killed.

Edit: typo

[Lianachan]

Excellent stuff!

I will however defend to the death my right to call sweetened, carbonated beverages "ginger", regardless of flavour. Eastern heretics who call them "juice" must be hunted down and killed.

I tend to call those "mixers".

[Heid the Ba]

Not in whisky, surely?

I don't actually drink them, I never have, and the Mem was most put out when she moved to Edinburgh as a child and was given lemonade when offered juice.

[Lianachan]

Not in whisky, surely?

Wheest, man! I'm talking about in the homosexual drinks, like gin. My brother once took a rare bottle of Laphraoig over to Istanbul, where he was living at the time, to give to a local businessman he worked closely with and who had always given every sign of being a fine and knowledgeable whisky enthusiast. To my brother's delight, the guy immediately cracked it open when given it, to the accompaniment of great praise and lofty words about the quality of the whisky. He poured two glasses of it..... and then filled them up with cola.

[Enzo]

I just sent that to my sister yesterday, she is obsessed over the soda versus pop thing. I am fascinated by that stuff too. Here is a longer list:

http://spark-1590165977.us-west-2.elb.a ... urveyMaps/

Laphraoig and coke? Wow. I have no idea who may have said it, but from decades ago, I recall someone asking about it the fellow said, "Ye have to be a verrra determined laddie to get that stuff doon."


I remember growing up we used the term soft drink in our house, but my younger sister swears we said soda. To me soda is the carbonated stuff you dilute drinks with in a bar. Now in the Midwest for close to 50 years I have moved over to the pop camp. But growing up in Maryland we were close enough to the real South that the "coke' thing was around us too. I remember you could go into a diner or something and hear, "What you want to drink, Hon?" "I'll have a coke." "Sure Hon, what kind coke you want? We have orange, 7-up, Co-Cola." No one thought it strange.

[Enzo]

Here, this might be more than you want to know:
http://aschmann.net/AmEng/

[tubeswell]

I just sent that to my sister yesterday, she is obsessed over the soda versus pop thing.
http://spark-1590165977.us-west-2.elb.a ... urveyMaps/

So the sophisticated speakers all speak the same no matter which coast they live near, and somehow the people in the middle are part of back-blocks rural USA and all talk quaintly?

[Enzo]

Quaint we ain't.


Maybe a bit more accessible:
http://robertspage.com/dialects.html

And where I live:
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/ameri ... s/midwest/


In fact I am in the middle of the Northern Cities Shift (or chain shift) region. It actually kinda grates on me to hear. Nah, stupid is the wrong term. In a movie, they use a Brooklyn accent to suggest stupid. A Rhodes Scholar would sound a dimwit if he spoke that way. Our west Michigan pattern sounds childlike to me. Like "daddy's little girl" speech. Still I find it interesting to study. I find myself analyzing how the words are formed. For example the words cat or dad or that. To make the a sound, here the sound starts with spreading the mouth as wide as possible then relaxing as the vowel finishes. The result is an intitial ee sound (or maybe iy) So car comes out kee-at, dad become dee-ad. "look at thee-at, it's my dee-ad coming home from work."

Contrast California, where many make the same vowel by opening the mouth farther vertically and no wider. SO the vowel sounds a bit more like ah. "I hov a cot. Her name is fluffy." It is a bit more subtle than that, but I'm working on structure.

There is also the short e becomes uh around here, but it doesn't seem to be the same people as the ee-a folks. But the uh-ers do seem to be consistent. "Prusident Reagan with the Detroit Rud Wings a butter season." I can't seem to localize that one. I remember once a woman on TV talking about her son Bun. It took me a while to realize she was saying Ben.

I hear a pattern not my own, I find myself trying to form it myself.

[tubeswell]

So you must be upper midwestern? I take it that's somewhat above the rest?

[Enzo]

Oh yes, yes we are upper indeed. In fact they named a large lake after us. You've heard of Lake Superior?