22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Differently From Each Other

[Ichingcarpenter]

More Maps:


http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest-linguistic-conflicts-in-america-2013-6#the-west-coast-is-really-into-their-freeways-18

[William769]

1. Now if we could just get one to explain the one's here on DU.

[MineralMan]

2. I think the maps actually show how the differences

are disappearing. I remember hearing major speech pattern differences in my extensive US travels in the 1960s. I hear less of it these days. I think the melding is progressing apace. That's probably due in large part to television.

[csziggy]

15. In the 60s when we visited NYC my Dad had to translate for us

From our Central Florida Southern accent to New York City accents.

About the same time, a friend of my Dad's from college moved from Michigan to Central Florida and his children had trouble understanding anyone, teachers or students.

On the other hand, when we visited Mom's relatives in Alabama, we had trouble understanding their thick accents.

It wasn't as though we had not been exposed to various speech patterns. Dad's parents were from Escanaba, Michigan, and friends of their from Michigan, Ohio, New York and other northern states often visited in the winter. When I was in high school, one teacher thought I was from the Midwest since I had picked up some of the accents from my grandparents' friends.

I think you're right - television has reduced regional accents. I think I read that most TV news people have Midwestern accents and that seems to be what many people are emulating.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Americans speak English even more totally differently than that from each other

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2012/08/northern_cities_vowel_shift_how_americans_in_the_great_lakes_region_are_revolutionizing_english_.single.html

[Orrex]

4. I think that "totally different" is a matter of some dispute

I don't know if "totally different" is a formal linguistic term, but to me it implies "not inter-compatible," in the way that Mandarin and Swahili are "totally different."

But regional accents with incidental quirks of grammar or vocabulary don't strike me as all that "totally different." And that's speaking as someone who's been asked "yinz red up your closet?"

[demwing]

55. Ok, I'll be the one to ask

Please translate: "yinz red up your closet?" into real English.

I'm overcome with curiosity

[tabbycat31]

5. I travel frequently for work

And every new place I go, I get pronunciation tips from the locals to make me sound like less of an outsider.

When I was in Wisconsin, even the city I was in (Green Bay), I was saying wrong (I emphasized Green instead of Bay). When I was in Southwest Virginia, the first thing I learned was that if a town ended in 'ville' it was pronounced 'vul' instead of 'ville' (it was hard to get used to that considering my hometown ends in ville)

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. I say the word Caramel both ways

depending on sentence structure and use of the word.. I'm a blend of the west and the south.


New Mexico its Pop almost right when you get across the border from Texas where they use the word Soda.

[tabbycat31]

9. Carmel ('car-mel') is a town

One that I went to camp in as a kid, and car-a-mel (with the extra a in there) is the candy.

I'll always say certain things, and soda is one of them. I'm too much of a northerner to let that go. I have a slight NY accent (grew up in the NYC suburbs) but my parents are not New Yorkers and if we said something like coffee (with 3 syllables) or dog 'dou-og' we would have been corrected and gotten in trouble for it. I will admit to using 'fuhgedaboudit' in my vocabulary.

[We People]

14. Please help me understand how the word "coffee" could be said in 3 syllables

Never heard of that one!

[tabbycat31]

23. it's really hard to type out

Let me see if I can find something on youtube.

This is the closest I can find

[We People]

38. Of course, I should have known!!

Thanks for going to all that trouble

[KamaAina]

19. The town of which Clint Eastwood was once mayor is car-MEL.

The alternate pronunciation of the candy is CAR-m'l.

[Myrina]

29. Yep, the one in Indiana is CARmel.

n/t

[lapislzi]

50. The town in which I live is CAR-m'l

If you say it wrong, the locals will remind you that car-MEL is in California.

And we eat caramels with three syllables.

[Fumesucker]

7. And New Orleans is Nawlins n/t

[PatSeg]

12. I learned that years ago when we moved to Mississippi from Chicago

and Gulfport is "Gufport". Biloxi is "Biluxi".

[csziggy]

16. A college dorm mate talked about the "Golf of Mexico"

It cracked us up every time - and she could not hear the difference between "golf" and "Gulf"!

[PatSeg]

45. It was quite an education for me at the time

I was in high school and my friends were always trying to teach me the "right" pronunciation for certain words. Once we moved back north, I quickly unlearned everything they taught me.

I had forgotten about the "Golf of Mexico"!!!

[KamaAina]

21. But only below Canal Street

Uptown, it's more like "Norluns".

You just gotta love a city that has internal dialects!

[PatSeg]

46. There is no city quite like it

So much flavor and personality.

[Sgent]

57. Bleh

I hate it when people say that -- because I don't think I've ever heard a local say it that way. The closest I've ever heard is na-orlens Pretty much any pronunciation that doesn't put a hard emphasis on the "eans" portion of the word is regularly used.

[Fumesucker]

58. Most of the guys I worked with were from Plaquemines Parish

And that's certainly what it sounded like to me, or maybe "N'Awlins".

But my ear is not that good so maybe you're right.

[Quantess]

8. I'm from the west coast and I say soda pop

Just to cover both bases. I used to call it pop and then I moved to CA where people called it soda.

[Arugula Latte]

17. When I was growing up in California we called it "soft drinks."

When I told people on the East Coast that, they laughed at me. I'm still scarred.

I call it "soda" now (live in Oregon).

Come to think of it, when i lived in Ohio people called it "pop" -- pronounced "paahp" with a slight nasal thing going on.

[KamaAina]

22. In Texas, they call it Coke.

No matter what kind it actually is.

Waitress: "What kind of Coke'll you have?"

Diner: "Dr Pepper, please".

[Arugula Latte]

24. I've heard that about the South.

I guess "Coke" is kind of like generic, like "Kleenex." But it seems confusing to me.

[Skeeter Barnes]

27. Here, it's "Co Drank"

"I mo git me a co drank"!

[Buns_of_Fire]

37. Some of my relatives up in the hills call it "Co-Cola"

In formal settings, like when ordering with a Moon Pie, they'll ask for an "RC-Co-Cola".

[krispos42]

10. Merry, marry, and Mary are pronounced the same?

Over almost the whole country???

when did this happen?

[unblock]

13. my mother wondered the same thing when i was growing up in ohio in the 70s.

[malthaussen]

33. Marry me Mary, and I'll make you merry. n/t

[KamaAina]

41. Mary and marry are pronounced the same

but merry?

[krispos42]

54. EXACTLY

Thank you!

[Spider Jerusalem]

61. no they aren't?

"Marry" has a slightly higher vowel sound than "Mary".

In many British (and some American) accents, ‘marry’ (and other ‘-arry’ words) are pronounced with the same vowel in ‘cat;’ ‘merry,’ (and other ‘-erry’ words) are pronounced with the same vowel in ‘pet;’ and ‘mary’ (and other ‘-ary’ words) is pronounced with the same vowel as that found in ‘fair.’

http://dialectblog.com/2011/09/21/marry-merry-mary/

[unblock]

11. i'm sure this is quite interesting for people with normal color vision....

if even those tiny squares in the legend were just a little bigger, that would help!

[Prism]

18. Apparently there is no "skim milk" in California

This one surprised me. When I go to a coffee shop in the Bay Area, there is a better than even chance the barista has no idea what I'm on about when I ask for skim. I have to say nonfat.

Is skim a Midwestern thing?

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. "skimmed", not "skim"

and you probably want to ask for "1% milk".

[Lochloosa]

20. I always thought ya'll yankees had a funny accent

[KamaAina]

25. And then there's "expressway"

Back East, it means a limited-access highway, often an Interstate (Bruckner Expressway in NYC, Jones Falls Expressway in Bawlmer): what Californians would call a freeway.

Out here, specifically here in Santa Clara County, it means a fast but undivided road with relatively few intersections and few if any buildings directly on it: what most folks would call a "parkway" or maybe a "boulevard".

[malthaussen]

34. Let's not forget Turnpike.

Which apparently only exist east of the Mississippi.

-- Mal

[KamaAina]

42. There is a Kansas Turnpike.

Thanks for playing, though.

In New England, a turnpike can be any old road, even a two-laner, as long as it was an actual turnpike (toll road with turnstiles) way back when.

[alarimer]

59. The Will Rogers Turnpike is in Oklahoma n/t

[malthaussen]

36. Why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway? n/t

[Shrike47]

26. A few years ago I was trying to get an address over the phone from a woman in Maryland.

She kept saying the street, 'Balimer'. I kept saying 'could you repeat that?' I finally asked her to spell it. 'B-a-l-t-i-m-o-r-e', making it clear from her tone that I was an idiot.

[hollysmom]

28. I wish they had done one more word

what do you call that thing in a play ground where you climb steps and then slide down?
I grew up calling it a sliding pond. Doesn't make any sense at all since there is no water at the bottom - from what i can see, that is a local aberration to Hudson county, NJ (where my mother came from) - Some people call it a slide,others have called it a slip slide.

[Spider Jerusalem]

31. "slide"

I've never heard the other two.

[malthaussen]

35. "Sliding board."

I grew up in Pittsburgh's suburbs, that's what we called it. AFAIK, it didn't change when I moved to Philly -- although the culture shock of changing from "pop" to "soda" nearly did me in.

-- Mal

[KamaAina]

43. The 'Burgh has one of the more distinctive local dialects.

gum band = rubber band
sammich = sandwich
dahntahn = downtown
needs cleaned (or whatever) = needs to be (whatever) (this applies to all of western PA)
yinz = y'all (hence the name "Yinzer" for this speech pattern and its speakers)

[malthaussen]

60. Some are restricted to the city limits.

"yinz" is a good example -- I never heard that until I was an adult and read about how strange the Pittsburgh dialect was.

-- Mal

[smokey nj]

48. Does your mom come from Bayonne?

Cause that's what we called it when I was growing up. It always bothered me and I eventually I just started calling it a slide.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. I lived in the Milwaukee area until I was about 7.

I understood that the thing where you press a handle and drinking water came out was called a "bubbler." When we moved to Minnesota I got a lot of grief in school for using that term, and was informed that it's a "drinking fountain." Apparently "bubbler" is unique to Milwaukee (which the locals pronounce "M'wawkee&quot .

[KamaAina]

44. Oddly enough, one other place uses "bubbler"

Boston! Boston, Milwaukee, and no place in between.

[Berlum]

51. But in Boston it's a 'bubblah'

[uppityperson]

39. Here is a link to the whole survey results maps, you can also look by city on maps. Very neat.

http://spark-1590165977.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com/jkatz/SurveyMaps/

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

40. Very interesting. Thank you!

I love this sort of thing. Looking at how I fail to fit properly into so many of those maps shows me why people keep asking me where I come from. It isn't merely because I call it "Loowievill" instead of "Loovull". I favor a number of terms and pronunciations which are just outside the local norms.

I'm a bit surprised that "soft drink" has lost its popularity. I recall a piece on the topic of the isogloss on NPR, years ago. Their main examples were soda/pop/soft drink, with the last of these being prevalent on the west coast, and tennis shoe/sneaker/gym shoe/plimsole. I think I will have to start giving the neglected "soft drink" some love.

[KurtNYC]

47. and these maps have been verified as accurate by Verizon

[reflection]

49. Where's the map of people who say "SAL-MON" instead of "SAM-MON" (phonetically)

That drives me batty. And they're everywhere. Thank goodness most of these people around me eat catfish. I worked at a seafood restaurant during college and I had to hear "SAL-MON" constantly.

[janlyn]

52. Being from the UK

The thing that drove my mother crazy was calling a wash cloth a warsh rag!!! I made the mistake of saying it once...and my mother believed in striking what offends, so I bet you can guess where I got slapped!!
Even after living in the southern part of the US for almost 30 yr I still won't use that particular phrase. But it's ok to to say pert near!!!

[truedelphi]

53. One linguistic "tell" that you hail from Chicago:

Last edited Fri Jun 7, 2013, 04:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Folks in Chicago, if they are going to the store (or anywhere), will ask: "I'm going to the store. Do you wanna come with?"

I never knew most people finish that sentence "with me."

And my WI cousins referred to the drinking fountain as the "bubbler."

As a child, I once spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out why my friend from Alabama had a kite that died, and then she missed it and had to get a new one.

Finally realized it was her cat that died, not a kite.

[Skittles]

56. I say BEEN with the EE as in SEE

I learned that in England