It tagged me as being clustered around the Great Lakes, rather than near the Dakotas or Montana, which didn’t surprise me; the Dakotans sound like they talk funny to my Saskatchewan ears.
(Plus, the Packers are the US analogue for the Roughriders!)
Most Similar Cities
1 Green Bay WI 31.9
2 Milwaukee WI 31.0
3 Madison WI 29.3
4 Minneapolis MN 29.0
5 Warren MI
Deep blue around the Mississippi Delta for the area least like what I sound like; but what’s with Pennsylvania?
Least Similar Cities
1 Philadelphia PA 16.9
2 New Orleans LA 17.5
3 Metairie LA 17.5
4 Jackson MS 17.5
5 Lafayette LA 18.2
One question puzzled me, the “crayon” one. Two of the alternatives were “cray-AWN” to rhyme with “dawn” and “cray-AHN”. To my ear, those are two different ways to represent the same sound?
It pegged me pretty well. A very hot spot in Louisiana (where I’ve never lived) but with residual hot spot in south Georgia (where I did) and New York City (where I do, more or less).
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
One question puzzled me, the “crayon” one. Two of the alternatives were “cray-AWN” to rhyme with “dawn” and “cray-AHN”. To my ear, those are two different ways to represent the same sound?
[/quote]
You’re probably one of those people who think Dawn and Don sound the same.
For a large clump of English speakers, “aw” is pronounced like this: first make an aaah sound like your’e at the dentist. Now diphthong your way from that sound down to a “w”: aaaughwwww.
crayaaughwwwwn. daaughwwwwwn. You aughwwwwt to be catching on by now.
Originally from New Hampshire. Knowing it would get muddled if I answered based on having lived in Missouri off an on since 1995, I tried to answer based on what I would have called things as a child.
All my most similar cities are in the Midwest and the Plains, with the outlier in Montana:
1 Des Moines IA 29.1
2 Omaha NE 28.5
3 Grand Rapids MI 28.5
4 Lincoln NE 28.3
5 Billings MT 28.3
Least similar are all in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic:
1 Providence RI 20.0
2 Toms River NJ 20.4
3 Baltimore MD 20.5
4 Elizabeth NJ 20.6
5 Philadelphia PA 20.9
So either I have a terrible memory, it’s a bad quiz, or I’m just dialectically odd.
Most Similar Cities
1 Metairie LA 34.1
2 New Orleans LA 34.0
3 Baton Rouge LA 32.4
4 Lafayette LA 31.8
5 Mobile AL 30.1
The only spot on the whole map that is red is centered around New Orleans! The fuck!? I’ve lived my entire life on Long Island and New York City! Is that just cause I answered “crawfish” to the first question?
And can someone explain Question #4? “What do I call an easy course?” WTF is an easy course? I’ve never heard of that phrase or *any *of the choices. I just left that one blank.
I’ve taken other online language quizzes before and they always peg me correctly as being from New York City. What’s up with New Orleans?
Now I want to try the 140 question version, maybe I did something wrong…
1: The questions are clearly randomized, since that one never came up for me.
2: Did you never go to a school with electives? An easy course is just that - a course that is easy, usually taken to raise your average or get an easy credit out of the way.
Anyway, my results:
Most Similar Cities
1 Dayton OH 32.6
2 Green Bay WI 32.4
3 Akron OH 32.0
4 Wichita KS 32.0
5 Fort Wayne IN 31.6
Least Similar Cities
1 Yonkers NY 19.9
2 Philadelphia PA 19.9
3 Stamford CT 21.2
4 New York NY 21.3
5 Los Angeles CA 21.5
So I took the 140 question quiz, and this time the red is centered right over Long Island/CT/NYC, with the cities listed as:
Most Similar Cities
1 Waterbury CT 39.5
2 Bridgeport CT 39.3
3 Hartford CT 39.2
4 New Haven CT 39.2
5 Providence RI 39.1
I wonder what made the shorter version so completely wrong.
Oh! OK, yes. The answers given were just a bunch of nonsense words so I had no idea what the context was. In that case I don’t think I know a specific term for it.
I apparently confused the hell out of this quiz. I grew up in an area where Northern New England and Southern Quebecois overlap. I’ve lived for extended periods in the greater NYC region and western NY. And I’ve spent a lot of time in Houston, Texas.
So when the quiz tried to match my accent, it came up with:
Most Similar Cities
1 Providence RI 33.1
2 Charlotte NC 32.1
3 Birmingham AL 31.7
4 Winston-Salem NC 31.5
5 Milwaukee WI 31.5
I’ve never even visited any of these cities much less lived in them.
That one surprised me. Because if you had asked me I’d have told you I pronounced crayon as a two syllable word. But when I stopped and listened to the way I actually say it, I realized I pronounce it cran.
I decided to try this, to see how it would deal with a foreigner whose native language is not English (as a matter of fact, English is not even my “second language”). The results are as follows:
Most Similar Cities
1 Newark NJ 35.4
2 Yonkers NY 35.3
3 Elizabeth NJ 35.2
4 New York NY 35.2
5 Providence RI 35.1
For the lulz, here are the “least similar” results:
Least Similar Cities
1 Spokane WA 30.2
2 Gresham OR 30.2
3 Vancouver WA 30.2
4 Portland OR 30.3
5 Eugene OR 30.3
The difference between both sets does not seem to be very big. But, in any case, I appear to sound like a “wiseguy” from the NY-NJ area, or (alternatively) like a damnyankee, or something like that
Interesting test! (I took the long one, 140 questions).
I grabbed a friend who is not a native English speaker and got him to take the test - it nailed him with Newark NJ too. So unless he’s picked up a NJ accent from me in the few months I’ve known him (unlikely), I wonder if there’s something up with this. Maybe you and him used the same ESL textbook from Rutgers University Press? Any other non-native English speakers want to share their results?
