NYT Regional Dialect Quiz

[Takumi]

It pigeonholed me into southeastern Virginia because of the drive-thru liquor store being called Brew Thru.

[ftballfan]

My top three:
1. Detroit, MI
2. Grand Rapids, MI
3. Toledo, OH

[qguy]

Spot on:
1. Philadelphia
2. Newark/Patterson
3. Baltimore

[kphoger]

It pigeonholed me into southeastern Virginia because of the drive-thru liquor store being called Brew Thru.

Funny thing is...  I've only heard of the term 'Brew Thru' from exactly this type of quiz.  As I have no existing term for such a thing, I'd now be most likely to call it a 'Brew Thru'.

[Takumi]

It pigeonholed me into southeastern Virginia because of the drive-thru liquor store being called Brew Thru.

Funny thing is...  I've only heard of the term 'Brew Thru' from exactly this type of quiz.  As I have no existing term for such a thing, I'd now be most likely to call it a 'Brew Thru'.

The odd thing is, we don't have them in Virginia. They're only in North Carolina.

[frankenroad]

I took it twice - first time, it said Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit.  That was fairly close, but I thought I would try again.  The second time, I got - Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Scottsdale

Of my 64 years, I have lived 7 in Maryland, 4 in New Hampshire, 2 in Michigan, and the rest in Ohio (3 in Columbus and 48 in Cincinnati).

Some questions were different, but a couple of tell-tale signs (like hoagie for a "sub") should have given me Cincinnati or Philadelphia.

I don't have a lot of faith in their algorithms.

And, since we here in Cincinnati call the store where you buy beer and such a "pony keg", I would call the ones you drive through a Drive-Thru Pony Keg, like this one.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/toms-drive-thru-pony-keg-cincinnati

[Bruce]

My map, as a life-long Washingtonian



The similarities to Upstate NY are kind of hilarious

[jp the roadgeek]

Well,  I got 2 cities within a hundred miles of me: Springfield, MA (45 miles) and Yonkers (about 90).  Buffalo was the third (about 400). 

[jmd41280]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?r=8241484j88000000100000400840000j0811014020080l0100

1. Pittsburgh (obviously!)
2. Lexington, KY
3. Oklahoma City

[webny99]

My map, as a life-long Washingtonian

[img snipped]

The similarities to Upstate NY are kind of hilarious

I noticed that, too, and now I'm curious about it.

[Henry]

Mine are Toledo, Aurora (the Chicago suburb) and Detroit:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?r=00jn1411040402201008j000000801008020j1402001210000

[US 89]

Here's mine. Top 3 cities are Fresno, Modesto, and Sacramento - funny enough, the only one of those I've even been to is Sacramento, and I've never left the car there. Bottom 3 are New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Philadelphia.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?r=80n008410800106000081040002001010j02028020020b0400



I'm sort of a weird case because I grew up in Utah, live in Atlanta right now, and my parents were originally from the midwest. So I've had a lot of influences from different places - which explains why most of my map is somewhere in the yellow-to-red range.

There were a few questions that would have definitively identified me as from Utah had I answered differently. For example, I knew several people who called roly polies "potato bugs", but that seems to be mainly concentrated among LDS church members (which I'm not), so it never really caught on for me. I also refuse to call mountain lions "cougars" thanks to that term's association with a certain college in Provo.

[kphoger]

I knew several people who called roly polies "potato bugs", but that seems to be mainly concentrated among LDS church members ...

Interesting phenomenon.   

[1995hoo]

I knew several people who called roly polies "potato bugs", but that seems to be mainly concentrated among LDS church members ...

Interesting phenomenon.   

Interesting to me because my wife for some reason uses the term "potato bugs" to refer to what most people call "stink bugs." I'm not sure why she does that and I didn't get a good answer when I asked.

[kphoger]

Interesting to me because my wife for some reason uses the term "potato bugs" to refer to what most people call "stink bugs." I'm not sure why she does that and I didn't get a good answer when I asked.

Maybe it's just a long-held misunderstanding on her part.

I know people in this area who refer to oriental cockroaches as "waterbugs" and therefore don't kill them as they would American cockroaches.  They refuse to believe me when I tell them they're actually cockroaches, just a different species but equally disgusting.

[Rothman]

Mister Rogers had an opera about potato bugs...

[Takumi]

Interesting to me because my wife for some reason uses the term "potato bugs" to refer to what most people call "stink bugs." I'm not sure why she does that and I didn't get a good answer when I asked.

Maybe it's just a long-held misunderstanding on her part.

I know people in this area who refer to oriental cockroaches as "waterbugs" and therefore don't kill them as they would American cockroaches.  They refuse to believe me when I tell them they're actually cockroaches, just a different species but equally disgusting.

Meanwhile I've heard "waterbug"  applied only to the American cockroach, though I use the term "sewer roach"  since that's typically where they come from.

[kphoger]

Interesting to me because my wife for some reason uses the term "potato bugs" to refer to what most people call "stink bugs." I'm not sure why she does that and I didn't get a good answer when I asked.

Maybe it's just a long-held misunderstanding on her part.

I know people in this area who refer to oriental cockroaches as "waterbugs" and therefore don't kill them as they would American cockroaches.  They refuse to believe me when I tell them they're actually cockroaches, just a different species but equally disgusting.

Meanwhile I've heard "waterbug"  applied only to the American cockroach, though I use the term "sewer roach"  since that's typically where they come from.

That's strange to me, considering I've typically seen American cockroaches in warm dry living spaces (such as kitchen countertops) but typically seen oriental cockroaches in cool damp places (such as basements).

[empirestate]

I'm sure I've taken this before and gotten pretty illogical results, but just now I got Rochester (my hometown, for you relative newcomers), New York (which I've lived in or near for several years now), and Newark/Paterson (which is, well, just really close to the preceding).

The only thing that surprises me was that it sensed more of a Downstate influence than New England, where my family has roots on both sides for many generations, up to and including my parents. It's from them that I'd have learned most of my common idioms.

[webny99]

To me it seems like Western NY and the NYC area have very different accents; quite likely the biggest difference within a single state.

[empirestate]

To me it seems like Western NY and the NYC area have very different accents; quite likely the biggest difference within a single state.

They're very distinctive, no doubt. In my case, it's likely that vocabulary is more influenced by Upstate, and pronunciation by Downstate. That's why Mary/merry/marry are three different sounds for me, for example. Also, while I lived in Rochester from an early age, my speech was learned from non-native Rochestarians, such as my parents and siblings, and the cast of Sesame Street. (And we all know where that takes place.)

Still, for some reason my biggest shibboleth for all three locales, according to the quiz, is "sneakers".

[vdeane]

XKCD has come out with a dialect quiz of their own: https://xkcd.com/2372/

[Takumi]

Interesting to me because my wife for some reason uses the term "potato bugs" to refer to what most people call "stink bugs." I'm not sure why she does that and I didn't get a good answer when I asked.

Maybe it's just a long-held misunderstanding on her part.

I know people in this area who refer to oriental cockroaches as "waterbugs" and therefore don't kill them as they would American cockroaches.  They refuse to believe me when I tell them they're actually cockroaches, just a different species but equally disgusting.

Meanwhile I've heard "waterbug"  applied only to the American cockroach, though I use the term "sewer roach"  since that's typically where they come from.

That's strange to me, considering I've typically seen American cockroaches in warm dry living spaces (such as kitchen countertops) but typically seen oriental cockroaches in cool damp places (such as basements).

I originally learned it through osmosis from my parents, but the term solidified in personal usage when, while working on my car one day, I saw one emerge from the sewer grate in the street in front of my house and head towards my driveway. (I stopped it well before it reached the house.)

Another insect that I've heard called different names are these things. I mainly hear them referred to as spider crickets or camel crickets.

[kphoger]

I saw one emerge from the sewer grate in the street in front of my house and head towards my driveway. (I stopped it well before it reached the house.)

I've learned not to step on cockroaches, as I've heard they sometimes carry their babies on their backs and then, when you step on one, some of the babies hitch a ride on your shoes to wherever you go.  Instead, I smash them with a paper towel.  (My place of business has a nearly unavoidable problem with cockroaches.  It's a cable company, and our field techs reclaim customer equipment as part of their job and bring the items back to the warehouse.  Roaches are attracted, for example, to cable set-top boxes because of the warmth.  If no bugs are visibly evident when the tech reclaims the equipment, then he's unaware of any need to bag that equipment before dropoff.)

Another insect that I've heard called different names are these things. I mainly hear them referred to as spider crickets or camel crickets.

I had neither seen nor heard of those until about eleven years ago.  We had recently moved, and the house apparently came with some of them.  My first introduction was to see one of them perched on the headboard of our bed, just silently staring at me.  My immediate thought was "ALIEN!"  Because I had never seen or heard of them, I had no already-learned term for them.  When I've described them to others in this area, a few have called them camel crickets, others have called them spider crickets, but most have never encountered them either.

Once I read a story online of a lady describing an encounter with a camel/spider cricket for the first time.  She had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and was sitting on the toilet doing her business.  She saw one facing her, silently staring at her.  Now, apparently camel/spider crickets have terrible eyesight, so their one defense against threats is to jump straight at them in hopes that it will scare them off.  It jumped at her.  She bolted up from the toilet, underwear around her ankles, and waddle-ran out into the living room.  In her description of the event, she mused that it's a good thing nobody was up to see her in that state.

[index]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?r=4220280808000060001100000100n0050j0l01804002020008
Based on the fact it's bright red pretty much almost everywhere I'd conclude I have a pretty generic American accent and dialect. Which is an accurate assessment. It's slightly Southern but it's only noticeable if I raise my voice, then I sound more Southern...Otherwise it's not very noticeable.