I get the “hot” pronounced as “hat” thing. I assumed that if someone said “cot” as “cat” he would also say “caught” as “cat.” Strange.
For me, caught has a slight aw sound in it: kawt (slight), and cot is pronounced: Kot.
“Inland North.” Born and lived my first decade in suburban Chicago before moving to the South, where I made a conscious effort not to acquire a Southern accent. Guess I succeeded, at least as far as this survey is concerned.
I don’t understand what the 7 bar lines below mean, as the chart isn’t titled. Do they represent the distribution of the respondents or the chances that you fall in one of those categories?
North Central.
I grew up north of Minneapolis, so that makes sense.
I had to think about that question before selecting “They all sound the same”, which ended up correctly identifying my accent as from the West.
My mind’s ear was trying to convince me they are different, but then saying them all out loud I realized they were actually the same. Perhaps this is why so many of us in the West are being pegged as something different.
On a side note, I was offended when it said my accent was the lowest common denominator. :mad:
Interesting. I’ve lived in “The Midlands” all my life, but:
Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
My ancestors mostly came from Boston and Rhode Island, I guess…
I guess there’s no way we can mask our accents, huh?
Thirding that.
I am apparently from Boston, or possibly New Hampshire. And here I thought north Jersey accents sounded like New York.
I interpreted them as a display of your scores for the different regions. Various answers correspond to more than one accent, so you get “points” toward each accent your answer matches. If a particular trait is only present in one of the accents, then answering “no” to a question about it might get you a point in every other accent, for example.
As a result, the graph should (theoretically) show which other accents yours most resembles.
For me, “caught” is almost “cawt”, while “cot” is basically “caht”. It’s the same distinction as “maw” vs. “Ma”, etc.
They’re all different for me:
Merry rhymes with Derry.
Mary rhymes with fairy.
Marry rhymes with Larry.
I know, the rest of you are thinking Derry, fairy, and Larry rhyme!
My result: The West
“Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you’re a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent.”
I’ve lived all my 44 years in Northern California, so this doesn’t surprise me at all.
The first part of horrible sounds like whore or hot?
Ummm…no, the first part of horrible sounds like har, rhymes with car.
That’s funny, me too and me too!
Yup, “the Inland North.”
To me, all six words rhyme.
I think that’s the point. And, um, me too.
How could pin and pen ever sound the same?
I am Canadian and it pegged me as North Central for which one of the comments is that ‘Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.’
This amused me greatly.