# Describe your idiolect **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2026, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792 "2026-03-26T18:39:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2026, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/21 "2026-03-26T21:56:38Z")
For fun, take The New York Times dialect quiz. Everyone I have ever had try this was pegged to within 50 miles (give or take a bit) of where they grew up in the US (this quiz only works for the US). It is paywalled so sorry about that: - [How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html) ETA: To the OP I grew-up in the Midwest (Chicago). I think I have no accent whatsoever. I get most would say that I do and just do not recognize it but my GF is from New York City (born and raised) and says she can spot Midwestern accents all the time living here and that I definitely do not have one. She agrees I have basically no accent of note. Just “English”…take that as you will. Occasionally I might use a word that would peg me as midwestern such as “davenport” for a couch. I honestly cannot remember the last time I used that word though. Soda or pop might help narrow it down some. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2026, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/22 "2026-03-26T22:02:20Z")
Pretty solid basic Southern California/Orange County beach bum, with a serious Texas overlay thanks to my mother’s side of the family, leavened with random Britishism I think are amusing (I read a **lot** of British fiction.) That means I pronounce Spanish words with a lazy American Mexican accent and don’t get confused by signs that say “LA Canada.” 😆 ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2026, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/23 "2026-03-26T22:11:31Z")
I definitely pronounce the l. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2026, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/24 "2026-03-26T22:25:25Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I think I have no accent whatsoever. I get most would say that I do and just do not recognize it but my GF is from New York City (born and raised) and says she can spot Midwestern accents all the time living here and that I definitely do not have one. She agrees I have basically no accent of note. So how did that NY Times quiz peg you? Did it figure out close where you’re from. Just curious. I definitely have a Chicago accent of some sort. I didn’t think I had much of an accent until I went to college and someone came up to me and just said “Chicago or Cleveland?” I was like “what?” “Are you from Chicago or Cleveland?” “Chicago. How did you know?” “You have an obvious accent.” Now, it doesn’t sound like you have a strong accent. I don’t talk like a union laborer or Chicago cop or anything, but clearly I have Chicago in my voice. Just curious if it placed you somewhere in Iowa or something, or whether it caught some Great Lakes/Inland North features. ETA: Ah, I can’t access the NYTimes article, but it looks like it’s based on dialect and not pronunciation, so I guess my questions are moot. Two simple ones that help locate you a bit is if you say cot and caught differently, and whether you make a distinction between merry/marry/Mary. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2026, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/25 "2026-03-26T22:28:03Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > So how did that NY Times quiz peg you? Did it figure out close where you’re from. Just curious. It pegged me NW of Chicago, about 40 miles from where I grew up. I think it is more about words we use rather than how we pronounce things (which I think is what the OP is asking) but there will be some overlap there I would guess. Still interesting though so I thought it worth sharing. It’s a fun quiz to take if you can access it (used to be available but seems they have locked things down more to get us to pay). ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2026, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/26 "2026-03-26T22:41:38Z")
I know we all know this, but to reiterate: Everybody has an accent, regardless of the language they speak. My accent may sound the most “neutrally” General American, like the newscasters or TV characters speak, but it **is** an accent. It’s the General American accent. If you speak in perfect King’s English, your accent is Received Pronunciation. Etc. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/27 "2026-03-27T00:56:14Z")
I basically speak Mid-western US English, in that I have lived most of my life in Indiana. However, the two cities I have lived in have been dominated by transplants, especially the one I lived in from age 14 to about 40 (with a few forays outside for a year or two here and there). However, before 14, I lived in New York City, and that’s where I learned to speak. However again, though, I was mostly in Manhattan, until I was eight, and in neighborhoods with again, lots of transplants, so while I had a distinctive NYC accent, it was light compared to someone who was born in Brooklyn. People in Indiana think I sound like I’m from New York, but people in New York think I have a very generic “TV” accent. Then, I spent a year (aged 10) in Moscow going to an international school, where many of the kids were from the UK, and so was my classroom teacher. I have a few words I learned that year that are not very common, and I still say with a sort of “British” accent. “Dour” is one, and “desultory” is another. And for some reason, the word “ordinary” sometimes comes out with 3 syllables instead of four, even though the vowels are American. I used to work on cars as a hobby, long ago, before I had a baby, and sold my 61 Falcon, and well before I went electric with my personal car. Whenever I was hanging out with car hobbyists, I’d say things like “ain’t,” and “in’” for “ing,” and sometimes even leave the “ed” of past tense vowels. When I’m at synagogue, I use lots of Hebrew and Yiddish words, and not just for things there isn’t an English word for. When you are with other Jews, you say “goyim.” _Maybe_ you say “lo-yehudim” (literally “non-Jews” in Hebrew)-- but _never_ “gentile.” But what’s funniest is when I’m with other hearing people who know ASL well. We use ASL faces, and vocalize them, we punctuate English with ASL words, and sometimes “Speak me ASL” in English words. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/28 "2026-03-27T03:57:49Z")
I was born in a suburb of Boston Massachusetts. My family moved to Tallahassee Florida when I was 2. Then they moved to Los Alamos New Mexico when I was 5. And to Valdosta Georgia when I was 7. Finally back to Los Alamos when I was 15. I speak a slightly yankee influenced soft southern with midwestern influences, modified, no doubt, by television voices. a) I pronounce the “h” in all my “wh” words such as “why”, “where” “whatever”. b) For me, words and expressions such as aw, bought, thaw, awful, etc, the vowel is a southern diphthong, starting with the a in father and sloping to the o in moment. That’s not at all how people here in New York speak those vowels; they have a pure vowel that nobody in the South ever speaks on its own: New Yorkers say “bought” as bɔt. I say bɑɔt c) I tend to pronounce “x” sounds as “ks” in all contexts, probably because that’s how I learned it and assumed it should apply everywhere else. Hence, xerography is “ks𝐈rogrǝfi” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/29 "2026-03-27T04:21:34Z")
Well, nobody in my family used the unvoiced wh-. But after I learned it from dictionaries, I came to prefer it. I honestly don’t reduce the voicing by much there, even when I think I am. Or, from another point of view, my family always said it without the h, and I don’t produce much of an h even when I intend to. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/30 "2026-03-27T05:11:44Z")
Lately I’ve been deliberately pronouncing the “t”'s in words sometimes as “t” where it would normally be a flap or “d”. I started to do this with online meetings, because there is occasionally a hiccup where you only hear part of a word and so I’ve found that it is easier to comprehend if I do that. I’ve found that it crosses over into the way I speak on the phone as well, and that’s okay with me since cell phone service has also been subject to blips for as long as I can remember as well, albeit not as much so as with conference calls/cam meetings. I _occasionally_ creeps into my regular speech as well, but this is rarer. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/31 "2026-03-27T05:54:44Z")
I describe my speech as halting. I have a difficult impediment. Now, in my head I sound like the southerner I am. With all the y’all’s, younguns and fellers and drawn out words. Yep I’m a hick. I cannot get ostrich said. Ever. I want the Os to sound like Oys. Good thing I don’t keep a pet oys-trick. 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/32 "2026-03-27T08:54:04Z")
I’m not entirely sure what my English-language accent is. I know it’s Northeastern, but not much beyond that. I was born in Israel to a father from Manhattan by way of Teaneck, NJ, and a mother from Atlantic City, both of whom sanded down their accents in college. I lived in Manhattan between ages 3 and 6, which makes English my first language, but I’ve been in Israel for almost the entire time since then. That means that my accent was mostly forged by my parents, a handful of English-speaking friends, and TV. The NY Times quiz says that I’m from either Yonkers, NY or Providence, RI. I don’t think I’ve been to either place. ---
**Author:** ![Clawdio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/33 "2026-03-27T09:05:08Z")
I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, lived in Minneapolis for 15 years, and have lived in the UK for the last 4 years. At this point my accent/dialect is probably best described as “cringe” by different cultures around the world, for different reasons depending on which one you’re asking. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/34 "2026-03-27T09:25:50Z")
British English, southern England with RP influences because my dad was upwardly mobile before there were yuppies. One of my own personal choices is to sometimes pronounce the ‘ed’ on the end of some words (arrived, elapsed) as its own sylllable - arrive-ed or elapse-ed. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/35 "2026-03-27T11:34:55Z")
It’s complicated. I grew up speaking a mix of London English (England) and… London English (Ontario, Canada) but… in a country where English is not an official language. I say cAHn’t and EYE-ther. ---
**Author:** ![Thumper668](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thumper668/32/20803_2.png) [@Thumper668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thumper668)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/36 "2026-03-27T12:37:09Z")
My accent changes depending on circumstances, and to whom I am speaking. I would say that under normal circumstances, speaking with someone who knows me, I have a rather generic New Jersey accent. (BTW - what most people think a NJ accent sounds like only exists in movies and cartoons. I do sometimes say TERlet instead of TOYlet if I’m being sarcastic). If I’m speaking to someone I want to help me, I tend to slide into an East Texas drawl. My wife and I have developed a habit of using archaic language with each other. “What?” becomes “Hwott?” “Shut up!” becomes “Hark!” (my grandmother used to say that and it still tickles me). We also both use the Canadian “sorry” with each other. The NYT quiz put me in Newark/Paterson/Yonkers, but this was primarily because I call the night before Halloween Mischief Night. I probably should have answered that I have no word for this because I haven’t thought about it since I was about 12. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/37 "2026-03-27T13:03:29Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Is that where that came from? I’ve heard various people on British TV use that pronunciation, some of them English, some Irish. That’s my understanding, and it can be a fraught subject - looked down on as “common” and/or)at least in Australia) as a sign of a Catholic education. As for pronouncing the “h” in “wh”, I think that’s more likely to be a Scot. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/38 "2026-03-27T13:09:46Z")
In Ireland, they’re good at applying the logic of English grammar to smooth out its irregularities. For example, the contraction “I amn’t.” When I was little I wondered why we don’t say “amn’t.” Then I grew up and read Joyce. But I haven’t adopted “amn’t” for myself. Yet. _If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine He gets no free drinks when I’m making the wine_ ---
**Author:** ![Thumper668](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thumper668/32/20803_2.png) [@Thumper668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thumper668)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/39 "2026-03-27T13:19:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > When I was little I wondered why we don’t say “amn’t.” So did I. I was so confident in my correctness that I insisted on using it, driving my mother and my teachers crazy. I think I was about 14 when I read _Ulysses_ and I remember parading it in front of my mother triumphantly. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792/40 "2026-03-27T13:20:36Z")
[![](https://preview.redd.it/vindication-v0-c71x2ay9x0nf1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=1929cfd397c12977785419c28637fe5ac0a74b12) ](https://preview.redd.it/vindication-v0-c71x2ay9x0nf1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=1929cfd397c12977785419c28637fe5ac0a74b12) VINDICATION! ETA: You read _Ulysses_ at 14? 😮 I don’t dare read it at 48. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-idiolect/1028792.md?page=3)