NYT Regional Dialect Quiz

[pianocello]

I got Rockford (caught/cot), Detroit (caught/cot), and Grand Rapids (drinking fountain). That sort of makes sense, as my mom is from mid-Michigan and my dad is from central Illinois. I was least similar to Boston, New York, and Worcester (never been to any of them).

[hbelkins]

This isn't about accents (how you sound when you talk). It's about dialect (the words you use when you talk).

Isn't a combination of the two though? I thought about half the questions were how you pronounce certain words

There are different questions each time you play, but yes the test seems to be about both dialect and accents.

I still don't think that "accent" refers to how you pronounce the words, but instead how your voice sounds when you pronounce them.

It's funny how these things work. For everyone around here, the correct pronunciation of the mountains where I live is "Apple-latch-uh." If you pronounce it "Apple-lay-chuh" then you ain't from around here. However, I have always pronounced it "lay" and didn't know I was saying it wrong until a year or so ago.

The best way I can think of to describe "accent" vs. "dialect" would be to listen to two college football referees announce a penalty. In an SEC game, you can always tell if the ref is from the Deep South by listening to him say, "Offsides, number 63 on the offense, five-yard penalty, repeat first down." A ref in a Big Ten game could say the exact same thing and it would sound completely different.

[DeaconG]

Most similar:Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Madison.
Least similar:Worcester, New Orleans and Anaheim.

Considering I was born and raised in Philly, that's damn good.  You can take the boy out of the North, but you can't take the North out of the boy...

[sammi]

Regarding accent vs. dialect.

Accent refers to your pronunciation only. It's only a subset of dialect.

I still don't think that "accent" refers to how you pronounce the words, but instead how your voice sounds when you pronounce them.

I don't see how those two are any different.

Dialect consists of the accent and a few other factors, such as grammatical constructions and word choice, that contribute to how you speak in general.

[Laura]

My results:

Most like
1. Columbus, GA (y'all)
2. Baltimore, MD (cot/caught pronounced differently)
3. Louisville, KY (yard sale)

Least like - all three because I pronounce aunt like "ant"
1. Worcester, MA
2. Providence, RI
3. Springfield, MA

I feel like Columbus and Louisville are random. Growing up in MD, I heard a mix of "y'all, you all, and you guys" but personally say "y'all". And the yard sale question was odd because I call them different things depending on location - yard sale if in yard, sidewalk sale if on sidewalk, etc. I grew up calling them all "flea markets" which wasn't an option.

I'm going to try and take it again and see what happens. I admit that the roadgeek questions also skewed my results. No one here calls them frontage roads, and everything is called a highway. Life is a highway.

[hotdogPi]

My results:

Most like
1. Columbus, GA (y'all)
2. Baltimore, MD (cot/caught pronounced differently)
3. Louisville, KY (yard sale)

Least like - all three because I pronounce aunt like "ant"
1. Worcester, MA
2. Providence, RI
3. Springfield, MA

Cot and caught are pronounced differently in New England (at least for me), and it's called a yard sale, too. How are those three least likely?

[sammi]

Life is a highway.

♪ I'm gonna ride it all night long ♪

I love that song.

[StogieGuy7]

I got, in the following order:

1. Detroit (Devil's Night)
2. Grand Rapids (pop)
3. Buffalo (pop)

The Mitten of Michigan is about as red as it gets on my map.

I am least similar to:

1. Knoxville (pronunciation of lawyer)
2. Chattanooga (pronunciation of lawyer)
3. Jackson, MS (you guys)

I did it via Facebook as well and got:

1. Detroit
2. Grand Rapids
3. Toledo

Makes perfect sense as I am the child of two Detroiters even though I grew up in NE Illinois, but have spent enough time going back and forth between here and SE Michigan.

How funny, I've moved around a lot in my life but have lived in NE IL for a while now (Lake Co.) and my 3 most similar cities were:

1. Minneapolis/St. Paui
2. Detroit
3. Buffalo

Though the Chicago area was bright red for me too.

Least were Worcester, MA, Pittsburgh, PA and Knoxville, TN. 

Very interesting quiz.

[sammi]

Pittsburgh, PA

Sub? Because that's how I got Philly.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

My 3 most similar cities are all in the Bay Area. Oakland, San Jose, and Fremont. My 3 least are around the Great Lakes. I only remember Buffalo and Toledo.

However, my one year living in Texas got "y'all" to be part of my daily language, and I use that interchangeably with the more Californian "you guys." My Filipino side also gets me to interchange "coke" and "soda," since "coke" is the more common term for soda over in the Philippines.

[sammi]

My 3 most similar cities are all in the Bay Area. Oakland, San Jose, and Fremont.

Honolulu, Fremont, San Jose. My dad said those cities have sizable Filipino populations, so I would blend right in.

My Filipino side also gets me to interchange "coke" and "soda," since "coke" is the more common term for soda over in the Philippines.

Philippine English is prone to genericization (I guess so are other dialects). Colgate, Pentel pen (Cdn. Sharpie), Liquid Paper (or Snopake, Cdn. Wite-Out), Coke (not once have I heard anyone use Pepsi). I just use "soft drinks", without feeling any need to distinguish between different kinds and brands. I don't drink anything carbonated at all anyway. o_o

[KEVIN_224]

The quiz gave me a mix of Springfield (MA), Yonkers (NY) and Newark/Patterson (NJ). Thank goodness I don't have the dreaded fah-in-the-cah BAW-stun accent!

@ SAMMI: For "Life Is A Highway"...the original Tom Cochrane version from 1992 or the country remake a few years ago?

[sammi]

@ SAMMI: For "Life Is A Highway"...the original Tom Cochrane version from 1992 or the country remake a few years ago?

Doesn't really matter, but I prefer Tom Cochrane... Why do you ask?

[KEVIN_224]

No reason. I just knew there were two versions of that song. That's all.

[hbelkins]

I still don't think that "accent" refers to how you pronounce the words, but instead how your voice sounds when you pronounce them.

I don't see how those two are any different.

See my example about the football referee.

[corco]

Isn't that still the same thing though?

Those SEC refs sound different because their alphabet is different- they're pronouncing words differently. Those aren't genetic differences that cause them to pronounce words differently- it's a trained, cultural development. The pitch of your voice is probably genetic (and it would be interesting to see if there's any geographic correlation to pitch), but everything else is controllable. Try talking with a British accent- you might be bad at it, but with practice you can do it, and the way you'll do it is by pronouncing words differently- merging your cots and caughts and splitting your pens and pins and whatever. Actors do this all the time.

[english si]

Try talking with a British accent- you might be bad at it, but with practice you can do it, and the way you'll do it is by pronouncing words differently

depends where in Britain your accent is. Other Brits struggle with accents similar to mine. Northerners can't hear the difference between broad A and putting an r in words like Bath, but I can. Americans are even worse, and while they might pick up the vocab for the dialect, they can't get the sounds right. Hence Dick van Dyke's deliberately awful Cockney in Mary Poppins: he tried and failed, so went for silliness rather than accuracy.

merging your cots and caughts

I can't think of anywhere in Britain where they do that!

[empirestate]

Try talking with a British accent- you might be bad at it, but with practice you can do it, and the way you'll do it is by pronouncing words differently

depends where in Britain your accent is. Other Brits struggle with accents similar to mine. Northerners can't hear the difference between broad A and putting an r in words like Bath, but I can. Americans are even worse, and while they might pick up the vocab for the dialect, they can't get the sounds right. Hence Dick van Dyke's deliberately awful Cockney in Mary Poppins: he tried and failed, so went for silliness rather than accuracy.

merging your cots and caughts

I can't think of anywhere in Britain where they do that!

Most people who fail probably do because they work only at altering the vocabulary and a few key vowel or consonant sounds. Changing one's accent really does depend on a shift in vocal placement–pitch too, often–and is what makes inauthentic attempts stand out.

[US 41]

The 3 cities it said I spoke most similar to was Wichita, KS; Overland Park, KS; and Indianapolis, IN. Since I live in Terre Haute, IN I would have to say it is correct.

[corco]

Try talking with a British accent- you might be bad at it, but with practice you can do it, and the way you'll do it is by pronouncing words differently

depends where in Britain your accent is. Other Brits struggle with accents similar to mine. Northerners can't hear the difference between broad A and putting an r in words like Bath, but I can. Americans are even worse, and while they might pick up the vocab for the dialect, they can't get the sounds right. Hence Dick van Dyke's deliberately awful Cockney in Mary Poppins: he tried and failed, so went for silliness rather than accuracy.

merging your cots and caughts

I can't think of anywhere in Britain where they do that!

Yeah I was throwing out random vocal inflection changes- I have no idea which changes are actually required for a successful British accent.

Most people who fail probably do because they work only at altering the vocabulary and a few key vowel or consonant sounds. Changing one's accent really does depend on a shift in vocal placement—pitch too, often—and is what makes inauthentic attempts stand out.

Hmmm, I suppose that's reasonable.

[english si]

Most people who fail probably do because they work only at altering the vocabulary and a few key vowel or consonant sounds. Changing one's accent really does depend on a shift in vocal placement–pitch too, often–and is what makes inauthentic attempts stand out.

Oh, absolutely, but it's a can't hear the difference thing, so you think you are doing an amazing accent and have no need to change, but you aren't.

It's even more a problem when dealing with a foreign language. Certainly a reason why people are encouraged to learn languages when they are young is that you start to lose the ability to hear and pronounce certain sounds - similar applies to accents.

American English, in particular, doesn't have the right sound set. I have not heard a successful English accent by an American, whereas I gather we can deceive (Hugh Laurie, for instance) Americans into not realising we are British.

Canadian Tatiana Maslany can do a British accent (and alters it to be a not-quite-right-one when playing a Canadian doing a British accent without training), and it might not sound quite right for the part of London her character is from, but it sounds like someone from southern England trying to do it, rather than a northerner, or worse, an American.

The broad A is probably the hardest thing for a northerner (of Britain) to do with a southern accent. It's just a long-back vowel, and while some (sadly dying) southern accents r-colour some vowels, there's no 'r' in there (which is what northerners try to do - 'barf' for 'bath' - they've got the 'th' sound nice and Cockney, though not all southern accents do that, but the 'a' is not 'ar' but a broad a rather than a short a). I think Boston has the broad a.

[empirestate]

American English, in particular, doesn't have the right sound set. I have not heard a successful English accent by an American, whereas I gather we can deceive (Hugh Laurie, for instance) Americans into not realising we are British.

That's because the Americans who do it successfully, you don't realize they're American!

Seriously though, my experience for a long time was the same with British actors successfully doing American accents: I didn't know of any–until I learned, years after having seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that Bob Hoskins was English. Part of the problem you're having, I think, is that you'd have to come see American stage productions to find most of the best British dialects done by our actors. On the screen, we tend to use real Britons for British roles. And American roles.

(Australians lately have been giving the British a run for their money in doing American accents, too...)

[BamaZeus]

Most people who fail probably do because they work only at altering the vocabulary and a few key vowel or consonant sounds. Changing one's accent really does depend on a shift in vocal placement–pitch too, often–and is what makes inauthentic attempts stand out.

Oh, absolutely, but it's a can't hear the difference thing, so you think you are doing an amazing accent and have no need to change, but you aren't.

It's even more a problem when dealing with a foreign language. Certainly a reason why people are encouraged to learn languages when they are young is that you start to lose the ability to hear and pronounce certain sounds - similar applies to accents.

American English, in particular, doesn't have the right sound set. I have not heard a successful English accent by an American, whereas I gather we can deceive (Hugh Laurie, for instance) Americans into not realising we are British.

Canadian Tatiana Maslany can do a British accent (and alters it to be a not-quite-right-one when playing a Canadian doing a British accent without training), and it might not sound quite right for the part of London her character is from, but it sounds like someone from southern England trying to do it, rather than a northerner, or worse, an American.

The broad A is probably the hardest thing for a northerner (of Britain) to do with a southern accent. It's just a long-back vowel, and while some (sadly dying) southern accents r-colour some vowels, there's no 'r' in there (which is what northerners try to do - 'barf' for 'bath' - they've got the 'th' sound nice and Cockney, though not all southern accents do that, but the 'a' is not 'ar' but a broad a rather than a short a). I think Boston has the broad a.

WHAT?  Kevin Costner's accent in Robin Hood wasn't spot on? *g*

[Alps]

Well, finally, my answers showed up (new OS n'at). Top 3: Newark/Paterson, Yonkers, Jersey City. (Gee.) I've never had a remotely different result than "North Jersey". Least similar: Fort Wayne, Jackson MS, Des Moines. I guess I don't have that wholesome Midwestern accent n'at.

[STLmapboy]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

This is a 25-question dialect quiz created in part by Josh Katz (one of my favorite authors, who has a really intriguing book). It attempts to pinpoint your location in the US (three cities) based on how you say different words. I got Madison, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids as my main cities.