Mapping Variations in American English Dialect

[Brandon]

marry rhymes with Barry.
merry rhymes with berry.
Mary rhymes with scary.

do you pronounce the vowel sounds differently in those three words?

Nope.  They all rhyme perfectly.  Try again

They also all rhyme to me as well.

[agentsteel53]

dang!  let's see... how to speak Jake...

"marry" has a similar "a" to "flat", "bass" (the fish), "lamb".

"merry" has a similar "e" to "pet", "spend", "best".

"Mary" has a similar "a" to "bear", "Claire", "cane".

I say similar and not identical because each of the example triplets has slightly different sounds as well - it just depends on where the tongue is, to combine the sound with what comes previously and what comes next.

[kphoger]

So, asking my wife to pick something up......  Carrie, please carry.....  Those two sound different to you, too?

Wait, scratch that.  ~arr~ in both of them.

[kphoger]

OK.  Came up with a better question.

Do you pronounce "Harry" and "hairy" differently?

[agentsteel53]

sure do.  one's marry and one's Mary.

[kphoger]

That is so weird...

[The High Plains Traveler]

New polls for you guys/y'all to answer:

Reply if you say "hot dish" instead of "casserole", and state where you're from.

Reply if you've ever played "Duck duck grey duck" rather than "Duck duck goose", and state where you're from.

Reply if you put your groceries in a buggy rather than a cart, and state where you're from.

Reply if you say "kitty corner" instead of "catty corner", and state where you're from.

Hot Dish is an upper midwest term, especially Minnesota. One not listed: my wife, a native Minneapolitan, insists a rubber band is a "binder".   I vaguely remember duck duck grey duck - I grew up in California. I've always said "kitty corner". In Minnesota, a snowmobile is often referred to as a "sled".

Though I always thought of California as having a neutral accent, I was made aware as a young adult, first time on my own outside my home area, of a tendency to insert "r" between a and sh, as in "going to warsh (or worsh) my clothes". And I agree, marry, merry and Mary are the same word.

[empirestate]

The "highway" one sounds right to me. [...] I think that map is a fine example of the difference between the technical usage of various terms like "freeway" or "expressway" and the real-world usage of such terms.

Except that "expressway" isn't a choice; in fact nothing is, other than "freeway" or "highway" in various shades of meaning. I seriously doubt "highway" is the predominant term throughout the Northeast.

[J N Winkler]

Re:  roundabouts & traffic circles–

I highly doubt that the number of people surveyed who would have answered with specific design criteria for the former were any more than a drop in the bucket.

I agree, but it does raise the question of how you sort out the effects of register, which is what 1995hoo is talking about when he says he will use the word freeway when he needs a technically precise term for a fully access-controlled highway facility adapted for high speed, but choose some other word in ordinary conversation.

If one really wanted to be controversial, one could invoke the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and suggest that in jurisdictions where there is no word for freeways in common use that is understood to refer to freeways only, it is easier to kill freeway proposals by rescoping them to something other than a freeway.

Reply if you say "hot dish" instead of "casserole", and state where you're from.

I'd say covered dish because I went native in Britain.  Casserole is what I grew up with.  For the communal event to which casseroles are often brought, I grew up with potluck dinner but often say covered dish supper now.

Reply if you say "kitty corner" instead of "catty corner", and state where you're from.

This is actually a big sociolinguistics test word.  I don't say either kitty corner or catty-corner because they sound too informal.  Catercorner is the more formal-sounding version of catty-corner, but I don't use it because I suspect it is a product of hypercorrection rather than a real word.  I prefer to use constructions like diagonally opposite.

[agentsteel53]

"binder":


"binder clip":


I believe these are fairly standard terms.  that's all that the word "binder" encompasses in my world.

[agentsteel53]

I don't say either kitty corner or catty-corner because they sound too informal.  Catercorner is the more formal-sounding version of catty-corner, but I don't use it because I suspect it is a product of hypercorrection rather than a real word.  I prefer to use constructions like diagonally opposite.

sometimes I say "cat corner".

I use the term in question to refer to "diagonally opposite" - for example, houses on opposite quadrants of a four-way perpendicular intersection.  I've heard it used for other relative positionings as well.  for example, two houses on a street, each opposite to the adjacent neighbor.  i.e. if you ran a perpendicular road between them, then it would be indeed "kitty corner", but there is no road... is that still kitty corner?  to some people, it is.

[twinsfan87]

New polls for you guys/y'all to answer:

Reply if you say "hot dish" instead of "casserole", and state where you're from.

Reply if you've ever played "Duck duck grey duck" rather than "Duck duck goose", and state where you're from.

Reply if you put your groceries in a buggy rather than a cart, and state where you're from.

Reply if you say "kitty corner" instead of "catty corner", and state where you're from.

I'm from NW Wisconsin/Eastern Minnesota, and here's what I say:

- I tend to say "Hot dish" instead of "casserole", but it doesn't sound odd for someone to say casserole to me. Although native Minnesotans generally say "hot dish", a lot of people also use "casserole".
- I played "Duck duck goose", but that's because I spent my younger years in Wisconsin. Around here in Minnesota, everyone plays "Duck duck grey duck" in elementary school.
- I put my groceries in a cart. Buggies would be something you push a baby around in (aka a stroller).
- I say "kitty corner", and I don't think I've ever heard someone say "catty corner"!

"Merry", "marry", and "Mary" are all homonyms to me as well (pronounced with a long "a" like "bear", "hare", or "wear").

[agentsteel53]

"Merry", "marry", and "Mary" are all homonyms to me as well (pronounced with a long "a" like "bear", "hare", or "wear").

I suddenly understand why "Beary Christmas" doesn't sound awfully stilted to the general public.

[realjd]

My last name is Doty. The proper English pronounciation is "dough-tee" but with an American accent it's usually slurred to "dough-dee". My wife and I got hassled by the security theater goon last time we flew home from Heathrow because we didn't say our names in the proper English way. He accused us of using fake passports because we didn't say our own name right and answered "both" when he asked if we said our name with a -tee or a -dee.

[Mr. Matté]

The proper English pronounciation is "dough-tee" but with an American accent it's usually slurred to "dough-dee".

I thought the dropping of middle ts was just a Jersey thing especially in Trenin and Innerstate 287...

[agentsteel53]

I thought the dropping of middle ts was just a Jersey thing especially in Trenin and Innerstate 287...

I half-drop a middle T.  "Trenton", as well as "Canton" (the town in which I grew up in Massachusetts) gets what I believe is a glottal stop for the middle "t".  a linguist who heard me speak would be able to identify it readily - I'm just not 100% sure.

I just noticed I glottal-stop the "t" in "cat corner" as well.

[vtk]

To those complaining that certain options were missing from the poll: I'm pretty sure the responses were not limited to 3 or four choices.  The responses may or may not have been freeform, but I suspect the survey was performed orally, with the survey taker writing down the responses and possibly categorizing similar responses as identical in the process.  However many responses actually exist in the recorded data, the maps display a maximum of four – if there are more than four responses in the data, it appears we get the top three and "other", which is then sometimes larger than the third or even second most common response.

I find some of the most interesting maps are the ones where "I don't have a term or phrase for this" is a popular response.

[corco]

It's actually kind of interesting  that the generic term for "fast road" is highway in the east and freeway in the west, since there's substantially more speed variation between the two classes of road in the east than the west, with freeways moving way faster.

[english si]

Reply if you say "hot dish" instead of "casserole", and state where you're from.

Reply if you've ever played "Duck duck grey duck" rather than "Duck duck goose", and state where you're from.

Reply if you put your groceries in a buggy rather than a cart, and state where you're from.

Reply if you say "kitty corner" instead of "catty corner", and state where you're from.

Casserole, England.
No, England.
Groceries go in trolleys, England.*
Neither: never heard of the terms, England.^

*Buggies are for babies/toddlers and carts are spelt with a k and for racing.
^If I had to guess what I would say: diagonally opposite, diagonal, opposite, over there, heading the other way... Doesn't come up that often.

I'd say covered dish because I went native in Britain.  Casserole is what I grew up with.  For the communal event to which casseroles are often brought, I grew up with potluck dinner but often say covered dish supper now.

say what? never heard of any of that 'covered dish' stuff. And it's not as if I'm that insulated from the hoity toity of university Oxford...

Casserole is a fairly specific thing in typical usage in the UK A potluck might be called 'bring and share' or something.

"binder clip":

Bulldog clip.

My last name is Doty. The proper English pronounciation is "dough-tee" but with an American accent it's usually slurred to "dough-dee". My wife and I got hassled by the security theater goon last time we flew home from Heathrow because we didn't say our names in the proper English way. He accused us of using fake passports because we didn't say our own name right and answered "both" when he asked if we said our name with a -tee or a -dee.

There's a numpty.

The Cockney accent, and the near London-originating 'Estuary' accent that is common throughout London suburbia will under pronounce 'T's in the middle of words. One sign on the M1 was 'modified' to say "Wa ford, Hemel Hemps ead, Lu on" as, back before Estuary English flooded across the south, the area had a notoriety for glottal stopping their 'T's - that's 10 to 20 miles away from Heathrow and given I have that accent, it was a wider area than just that narrow corridor.

Obviously Heathrow has a world's worth of accents, but to get uppity about what is a common 'mispronunciation' in the area where you, the security goon, live is just really assholeish.

[1995hoo]

The "highway" one sounds right to me. [...] I think that map is a fine example of the difference between the technical usage of various terms like "freeway" or "expressway" and the real-world usage of such terms.

Except that "expressway" isn't a choice; in fact nothing is, other than "freeway" or "highway" in various shades of meaning. I seriously doubt "highway" is the predominant term throughout the Northeast.

We might be saying two different things. Everywhere I've lived I've always heard "the highway" used as the generic term. For example, "At rush hour if you take the highway you'll get stuck in traffic, so go through the streets." I only hear "expressway" used as part of a formal name, like the Staten Island Expressway. I've never heard anyone say "take the expressway" or the like.

[realjd]

The Cockney accent, and the near London-originating 'Estuary' accent that is common throughout London suburbia will under pronounce 'T's in the middle of words. One sign on the M1 was 'modified' to say "Wa ford, Hemel Hemps ead, Lu on" as, back before Estuary English flooded across the south, the area had a notoriety for glottal stopping their 'T's - that's 10 to 20 miles away from Heathrow and given I have that accent, it was a wider area than just that narrow corridor.

Obviously Heathrow has a world's worth of accents, but to get uppity about what is a common 'mispronunciation' in the area where you, the security goon, live is just really assholeish.

The London pronunciation would "dough'ee". At least I don't have a "th" in my name that folks from the SE would pronounce with an 'f'!

Security goon honestly thought he caught a set of terrorists because we slur the T into a D and answered "both" when he asked  "which is is then?". To be fair though the security goon wasn't himself English and English clearly wasn't his first language. But it's not a problem limited to the UK. I've had similarly stupid runins with our idiotic TSA.

[formulanone]

I've lived in Florida for over 30 years, and I usually pronounce it (Flah-ri-duh) like I'm from New Jersey. I guess you can't remove all your birthmarks.

Is the "raining while the sun is out" a joke? I've never heard that term before!

[Brandon]

I've lived in Florida for over 30 years, and I usually pronounce it (Flah-ri-duh) like I'm from New Jersey. I guess you can't remove all your birthmarks.

Is the "raining while the sun is out" a joke? I've never heard that term before!

What, you've never heard of a sunshower?

[empirestate]

To those complaining that certain options were missing from the poll: I'm pretty sure the responses were not limited to 3 or four choices.  The responses may or may not have been freeform, but I suspect the survey was performed orally, with the survey taker writing down the responses and possibly categorizing similar responses as identical in the process.  However many responses actually exist in the recorded data, the maps display a maximum of four – if there are more than four responses in the data, it appears we get the top three and "other", which is then sometimes larger than the third or even second most common response.

That may well be so, but it still doesn't explain to me the lack of "expressway" as one of the top four answers in certain parts of the country, certainly everywhere I grew up. Likewise, I'd expect "interstate" to be a default in other regions.

I think more likely is that the actual question asked doesn't quite match the one presented on the slide.

It's actually kind of interesting  that the generic term for "fast road" is highway in the east and freeway in the west, since there's substantially more speed variation between the two classes of road in the east than the west, with freeways moving way faster.

It is interesting, indeed, mainly because in my experience it isn't so. :-)

We might be saying two different things. Everywhere I've lived I've always heard "the highway" used as the generic term. For example, "At rush hour if you take the highway you'll get stuck in traffic, so go through the streets." I only hear "expressway" used as part of a formal name, like the Staten Island Expressway. I've never heard anyone say "take the expressway" or the like.

That's a good point. Although I have indeed heard "take the expressway" used that way everywhere I've lived, or perhaps the network of local freeways referred to collectively as "expressways", it's probably equally common to hear roads referred to specifically: "once we get on the Thruway" or "take the Turnpike" or "there's too much traffic on the LIE; use the parkways".

But it still looks to me as though the question was more about the distinction between "freeway" and "highway", and may not have been framed so as to allow other volunteered terms. If the question asked was "what do you call this? [picture of a controlled-access road]?" then "expressway" and "interstate" would have been given more often than the graphic depicts. If it was instead a picture of a non-controlled-access, high-speed road, then I wouldn't expect to see "freeway" come up hardly at all, and certainly not in California. Rather, and this is assuming pictures were even used at all, maybe there were several different types of road shown, and the respondent asked to label it either "freeway" or "highway"?

[formulanone]

I've lived in Florida for over 30 years, and I usually pronounce it (Flah-ri-duh) like I'm from New Jersey. I guess you can't remove all your birthmarks.

Is the "raining while the sun is out" a joke? I've never heard that term before!

What, you've never heard of a sunshower?

Your I-55 corridor seems to be a striation of soda in otherwise pop-landia...