Well, it really covered the bases with me…it gave me three cities: Spokane, Salt Lake City and San Jose. So basically, anywhere in the Western US.
I actually grew up in Washington and now live in Oregon, so I guess Spokane was in the ballpark at least.
And growing up in Washington, we called easy classes…“easy classes.”
Mine had dots on Worcester, Boston and Providence but the red was most concentrated on Worcester. I lived there from age 5 to 20 and still live in Worcester County now.
However, if this were a regional accent test it would never put me there, and most likely wouldn’t even put me in New England. So I picked up the lingo but not the accent.
I grew up in Fairbanks, but was born in Seattle and now live in Seattle, and it pegged me as either Seattle or Portland. So it’s a fair cop.
They could easily peg the Alaskans with a couple of Alaska-specific terms but I guess there aren’t enough Alaskans to bother separating them from the generic west-coasters.
It had me as either Louisville or Lexington Kentucky, or Little Rock Arkansas.
I was raised in Dayton Ohio, so Kentucky ain’t far off.
I’ve now tried this thing a half dozen times, and it doesn’t get anywhere near to where I grew up, even if I change some answers. Once it confidently pegged me as being from Salt Lake City. :rolleyes:
One of the three cities they suggested (DC) is where I was raised, and the other one (Baltimore) was 30 miles away.
So, surprisingly accurate.
I’m a linguist and had a hard time taking this quiz. It was hard to separate what I knew of the lingo in the various places I’ve lived versus what I knew I was “supposed” to answer version my correct, gut answer. The first time I took it, it was nowhere close. The second time I took it, I thought harder and took my time. It came up with a diagonal band of red that contained the three places I have lived 30 of my 33 years, so yay. I did it “right”.
It reckoned NYC, Yonkers, and Baltimore for me. I was born 13 miles from Yonkers and actually lived my first year or so in Maryland, though I doubt that had much influence. Perhaps it was just trying to split the difference between “sunshower” (evidently a major NY giveaway) and “y’all” (which I’ve developed since moving to NC).
It did put my wife in the New York area. She’s from Buffalo.
Pretty close. Newark, New York and Yonkers. It works for word usage but not accent. My accent is a lot more neutral than the Tony Soprano dialect from NE Jersey.
I think that is one of the things that most nailed it down for me. That and Mischief Night.
Well, that’s great. I guess it’s only me that the thing couldn’t figure out what to do with so it put me in Lexington KY, Augusta GA and some other city I don’t remember, cause I don’t know nuthing’ bout nuthin’ east of the Mississippi.
I have at least been to Lexington but I only stayed a few days. Took in a couple of races, counted my money & left.
I was an Air Force brat, but only in the western part of the US and for a couple of years in Germany. I must have picked up weird expressions from kids who came from those other places. For some reason the distinctive thing seemed to be the drive-through liquor store. I checked “we have them here but there is no name.” We have ONE. Of COURSE there’s no generic name.
I think it was the “Mary,merry,marry”- I got the same three cities, but I have no name for the night before Halloween. (we did our mischief on Halloween)
My wife’s from Buffalo, as well, and it pegged her to Buffalo, Rochester, and I can’t remember what the third one was, but in the same general region.
It pegged me for Fresno and Socal. Fresno is ballpark since I grew up mostly in little towns in northern California with parents from Phoenix and rural WA
It pegged me pretty close, with Spokane, WA, Boise, ID, and Salt Lake City being the most similar to my way of speaking.
New Orleans is my least similar city. Big dark blue spot there.
Spot on for me. New York, Yonkers and Newark, and I’m from Queens.
I’ve lived all over, so I answered as I would have at 19. So Expressway instead of freeway (like in the Bay Area where I live now) and yard sale instead of carport sale, like when I lived in Louisiana. It seems sun shower nailed me. I didn’t get the sneakers question, which was mentioned in the article in the Times about this. Hero instead of hoagie probably helped too.
I went to high school in Ohio, college in Missouri, graduate school in Colorado and Ohio. The only term I’ve ever heard for that concept is “cake.” Which wasn’t one of the choices. 
It got close enough. The map at the end included my location, and the three cities it named formed a triangle. It fits what I thought, too, that I was more Missourian in my speech than Arkansan, as two of the cities were in Missouri.
I do hate that the Facebook share button doesn’t actually share my map, though. It’s the reason I didn’t bother with it.
The thing that got me most was “crawdad.” That pulled me back down to Arkansas, I think.
Pegged me exactly (New York City).
Things that surprised me, from this quiz specifically and the data from which it’s drawn. (Overall/Maps, and By State.)
– I didn’t know that sneakers was such a Northeastern thing. I assumed it was the same everywhere: “sneakers” is the overall category, while running shoes, tennis shoes and others are subcategories. And “gym shoes” is what a private school kid says to differentiate from the dress shoes he normally wears to school.
– I was shocked to see that “hero” is basically limited to NYC and Long Island (they don’t even use it upstate). I know about the other terms, and will use “sub” almost interchangeably, and I assumed that was mostly the case elsewhere. Instead, while most of NYC calls it a “hero,” that term is around 1% in most states.
– I have no word for the night before Halloween, but what surprises me is that the whole damn state of New Jersey calls it mischief night and I’ve never heard the expression (nor am I even familiar with the night before Halloween being a thing).
– “Kitty-corner”? “Catty-corner”? What the hell are you talking about? It’s just “that corner over there.” I might use “across diagonally” if the area in question wasn’t in sight. Until today I would have no idea what someone meant by any other term.
I’m also a little surprised they didn’t ask if “pin” and “pen” are pronounced the same. My father’s from Alabama originally, and the two sound identical to him:
“Hey, hand me that pin in the drawer.”
“Where?”
“In the drawer, right there.”
“… I don’t see one.”
“The blue pin, right there.”
“You mean the PEN?”
“That’s what I said!!!”
We’ve had that conversation at least three times.