American Dialect Mapping

[Damelon]

American English, that is. I came across an article on the BBC web page this morning on a grad student at N.C. State who has been mapping the dialect variation of various words and names of things. It caught my eye because of a discussion between Savor Dam and Menolly a few months ago about what is meant by "the city" . Some interesting browsing there.

[dlbpharmd]

Mr Katz says the dialect variation that caught him the most off guard was the term used in the southern US when it rains on a sunny day. "Most people say sun shower, but some in the South say it's the devil beating his wife."

Ha! I've heard that before!

[Menolly]

It caught my eye because of a discussion between Savor Dam and Menolly a few months ago about what is meant by "the city".

heh.

NYC is the most prevalent.
San Francisco isn't even mentioned under "Complete Results."


Question 95 is for "the city," in case question 65 is the one that pops up when one clicks on the link like it did for me.

[sgt.null]

try being the only Yankee working in a Texas prison.

when I cuss, I seem to forget myself and lapse into New Hampshire dialect. dropping r's left and right.

[deer of the dawn]

I remember hearing that there is a certain zone where people speak "flat American" with "no accent", and I asked, "who decides there's no accent?" They couldn't answer. We noticed, though, when we were kids visiting our cousins near Boston, that they said some words different. They told us when their young cousin visited from the South she asked them "Whah'd'y'all talk funneh?"

[Avatar]

Mr Katz says the dialect variation that caught him the most off guard was the term used in the southern US when it rains on a sunny day. "Most people say sun shower, but some in the South say it's the devil beating his wife."

Ha! I've heard that before!

English speakers here call it a monkey's wedding. Afrikaners say that the jackal is marrying the wolf's wife. (It sounds better in Afrikaans.)

--A

[dlbpharmd]

I remember hearing that there is a certain zone where people speak "flat American" with "no accent", and I asked, "who decides there's no accent?" They couldn't answer. We noticed, though, when we were kids visiting our cousins near Boston, that they said some words different. They told us when their young cousin visited from the South she asked them "Whah'd'y'all talk funneh?"

I used to get that reaction every time we visited family in Ohio (pronounced O-Hi, of course.)

[Vraith]

I remember hearing that there is a certain zone where people speak "flat American" with "no accent", and I asked, "who decides there's no accent?"

Heh...actually, it was the news and entertainment industry that "decided."
The number of people who spoke it as "natives" was quite small.
[a literal answer even though the question seems rhetorical..
]

But I think the map, while interesting, would be more useful in a number of ways if he had separated out mere accent from dialect.
[I know some definitions of "dialect" include "pronunciation" as a part/characteristic. I don't think it should, if I had the power to decide. Accent is variation in the structure/shape of the vocal apparatus.
Dialect is variation in the structure/shape of the language.]

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Classifying and recording dialects for linguistic purposes is sound scientific principle. Unfortunately, most people use dialect as a way to place people into a social hierarchy of equivalence classes, typically with their native dialect being the best one (of course) and other dialects (Southern, Texan, etc) being equated with "dumb".
I can adopt various regional dialects at will, which sometimes causes people on the phone to wonder "where are you from?". I have gotten sloppy in my middle age, letting more of the Texan slip through, but I try to keep a neutral accent while on the phone. The "neutral" accent is typically Northern California and is what you will hear when you listen to a newscaster reading their script.