US Regional Vocabulary Differences

[Hari_Seldon]

@panache45

How do you pronounce Mary/marry/merry? Here, we pronounce them all the same (like “merry”). But when I lived in NYC, each was pronounced differently. The first vowels were:
Mary: as in “ape”
Marry: as in “apple”
Merry: as in “air”

I say Mary as in airy, fairy, dairy (technically a tense a)
Marry as in harry, parry, carry (lax a)
Merry exactly the same as Murray (an uh sound)

Since we have morphed into pronunciation, I say bad, mad, and glad with a tense a; nearly all other syllables with a lax vowel (so sad does not rhyme with mad for me). Wad is an exception, rhyming with cod. In contrast, I say can (the modal), ran, and began with a lax a; all other -an with a tense a (including the noun and ordinary verb can). One other quirk I am aware of is that house has a regular plural, the s remaining unvoiced, while for most dialects of English that I am aware of it has an irregular plural pronounced houzez. But even I say houze, houzes for the verb to house, which is usual in English.

[Uncle_Brother_Walker]

Grew up in Texas.

Tea=it was assumed it was sweet. And free refills.
Greeting to several=How y’all doing.
To invite the entire group=All y’all.
beverage=coke. To be followed by “what flavor?” (Sprite, Pepsi, Orange, whatever)
yard=lawn
Frontage road=feeder road
wasps=muddobbers
culverts=gulleys
almost any crusteacean=crawdaddy
fireflies=lightning bugs
couch=sofa
den=back room
breakfast=tacos (the joke is Texans don’t know what to do with milk because breakfast is (breakfast) tacos.
I’m sure I’ve got more, but it is getting late…sleepy…

[thirdwarning]

@panache45

Well, exactly how old are you? I’m 63, and always called it a couch. So did my parents. But when I’m shopping for furniture I call it a sofa, to distinguish it from a love seat. I have never in my life heard anyone use the word “davenport,” except in period movies.

Well, since people are asking, I’m 53. Maybe it’s more of a regional thing than I thought, although both my parents used it and they grew up different parts of the state. My dad used to occasionally make fun of my mother’s hillbilly accent, but I never really noticed much difference between the two of them.

[thirdwarning]

@Beware_of_Doug

Are drinking establishments commonly called “taverns” anywhere but Wisconsin? I don’t mean on signs, but in everyday speech - instead of “bars,” which is Upper Midwest shorthand for any kind of dessert squares. (They might be peanut butter, lemon, Rice Krispie, chocolate chip cookie, but you’d just say “we’re having bars for dessert.”)

They were taverns where I grew up, in small town, not-suburban Illinois. Especially when Dad went there every day to play cards, after he retired. Came home with a candy bar he won, often.

[Leiko]

Speaking of davenports: My grandmother, born in 1926 in eastern Washington, then raised mostly in western Washington (specifically on farms between Olympia and Mt. Rainier), called the sofa a davenport, but her children (my aunt and my mom) both say couch.

On vowels, Pacific Northwest Tolkien-definition-of-tween tween pronunciation thereof: I’m in the caught/cot merger (I can understand how they can be different sounds, but I can’t make them myself) and Mary/Merry/Marry all sound the same to me.

[thirdwarning]

Oh, and one last question before I go to bed.

That thing you drive on, with the limited access and the high speeds. Freeway or expressway?

[Leiko]

Freeway! Expressways are something they have over there (imagine I’m pointing east) or otherwise elsewhere.

[BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed]

@elfkin477

Not only is this regional, it’s also generational. My mother baffles my brother and I by refering to lunch as “dinner” because as far as we’re concerned “dinner” means supper. We grew up in MA and NH too, so it’s not as though we’ve lived places far from where she grew up. It’s one of those things that used to be different here, but aren’t so much any more: an other example is all the books on regionalisms say we call soda “tonic” up here. I don’t know anyone under 65 who calls it anything but soda.

I’d like to know where the OP is from, because I’ve never heard that word to mean anything but a quaint way of saying sled. A not often used term, at that.

My parents didn’t do the dinner=lunch thing, but they def did the tonic=soda. Not sure when I made that transition, but it’s definitely soda now.

However, I have to disagree on the toboggin. A long wooden sled will always be a toboggan-- it’s a specific kind of sled. They might not be as prevalent as they used to be, so maybe that’s why it feels dated, but it seems odd to just call it a sled. Kind of like calling a square a rectangle, or quadrilateral. It’s correct, but I’d be much more likely to call a square a square.

[Arglefraster]

I lived in Indiana until about, oh, 5 or 6 years ago I think? I now live in Baltimor. I’ve been told that my lingo is still Indiana-fied, although I’ve started saying “youz” to pluralize “you” instead of “y’all”.

@OttoDaFe

“Ditch” is the same as the Texan’s “branch water,” as in “I’ll have a bourbon ditch.”

I’ve never heard either ditch or branch water when referring to mixed drinks. Is that anything like “well drinks” (mixed drinks made with cheap liquor). In Baltimore they seem to call them “rail drinks”.

I grew up saying “soft drink”, although now I’m more likely to day “soda”.

Always said “couch” for the longer plush seating furniture and “loveseat” for the shorter one.

“Lunch” is the noon meal. “Supper” and “Dinner” can be used interchangeably for the evening meal.

Drinking establishments were “taverns” when I was growing up in Vermillion county, IN (very rural, lots of farmland and tiny towns), but they were “bars” after I moved to Evansville, IN (what passes for a city in Indiana). I’m not sure if that’s a rural/urban thing, or a central/southern Indiana thing.

Sitting down was “copping a squat”, but again, I don’t think I ever heard that after I moved to Evansville. Same with “modockin’ it” (hurrying). I’m not even sure if I’m spelling “modockin” correctly, as I only ever heard it spoken.

Also, it wasn’t until I moved out of the state that I learned that “Hoosier” is considered an insult akin to “trailer trash” in most mid-western states except Indiana. In Indiana it means “someone from Indiana”.

Small running bodies of water are creeks (pronounced “cricks”). More than once I’ve used the word “crick” since I’ve moved to Baltimore, and the person I was talkign to had no idea what I was talking about.

We always said “crawdad” in Indiana. In Baltimore I’ve heard both “crawfish” and “crayfish”.

Calling milkshakes “cabinets” is just weird. To me, cabinets are the storage areas in the kitchen with shelves for your plates/bowls/glasses/etc. In Baltimore, I’ve heard “cubbard” used for this. I’m guessing Rhode Islanders use cubbard as well?

[Bosstone]

@thirdwarning

That thing you drive on, with the limited access and the high speeds. Freeway or expressway?

Called it a freeway in California, shifted to highway on moving to Arizona.

[gigi]

@thirdwarning

Oh, and one last question before I go to bed.

That thing you drive on, with the limited access and the high speeds. Freeway or expressway?

Highway.

[wolfman]

There is also the wierd Michigan thing of calling Diner/Greasy Spoons a Coney Island. First time there I was wondering how many freakin hot dog stand people needed, there is one on every block(Although the do all sell hot dogs too).

[Sunspace]

@thirdwarning

That thing you drive on, with the limited access and the high speeds. Freeway or expressway?

Freeway. Some freeways around here are formally named ‘Expressway’, though.

A highway is any main road, often two lanes, numbered by the province, which connects two localities. Highways don’t have to be controlled-access. This means that all our freeways are highways, but not all our highways are freeways.

[zweisamkeit]

@wolfman

There is also the wierd Michigan thing of calling Diner/Greasy Spoons a Coney Island. First time there I was wondering how many freakin hot dog stand people needed, there is one on every block(Although the do all sell hot dogs too).

A Coney Island is a specific type of diner that sells… Coney Dogs (along with standard Greek/American diner fare). There are diners that aren’t called Coney Islands. But yes, this area is obsessed with them.

The key to, oh, 90% of metro-Detroit diners is that there will be standard Greek diner things (spanakopita, souvlaki, gyros, fun saganaki, etc.) along with American standards (including old school things like liver and onions). They’ll also be some of the last to ever be dragged into no-smoking, I think.

[Student_Driver]

@Arglefraster

Drinking establishments were “taverns” when I was growing up in Vermillion county, IN (very rural, lots of farmland and tiny towns), but they were “bars” after I moved to Evansville, IN (what passes for a city in Indiana). I’m not sure if that’s a rural/urban thing, or a central/southern Indiana thing.

Sitting down was “copping a squat”, but again, I don’t think I ever heard that after I moved to Evansville. Same with “modockin’ it” (hurrying). I’m not even sure if I’m spelling “modockin” correctly, as I only ever heard it spoken.

Small running bodies of water are creeks (pronounced “cricks”). More than once I’ve used the word “crick” since I’ve moved to Baltimore, and the person I was talkign to had no idea what I was talking about.

We always said “crawdad” in Indiana. In Baltimore I’ve heard both “crawfish” and “crayfish”.

Selective quoting in the above, to comment on a few of these. I’m in Indiana myself, and have always lived in the metro Indianapolis area.

Taverns/bars: “bar” is the generic term for liquor-serving here, so the tavern/bar thing is probably rural/urban, rather than central/southern. Tavern can be used, and IME seems to apply mostly to beer-oriented bars where food service is readily available. (Food has to be available in every bar here, even dance clubs, but it’s usually not promoted, and most patrons have no idea it’s available).

“Copping a squat.” I’ve heard this once in my life, and it was from someone prone to using backwoods phrases. “Cop a seat” is a little more common, but still not widely used.

Creek/“crick.” The “crick” pronunciation isn’t used in Indianapolis, though we’re familiar with it. It’s used on occasion to mock rural Hoosiers, though. (Often those Hoosiers from “Martintucky” or some other “…tucky” town. That is, Martinsville or another southern town which is deemed to be backwards and more culturally similar to Kentucky than to central/northern Indiana.) I suppose it’s kind of like the word “holler” for a “hollow,” or small valley/dale.

I’d say crawdad/crawfish usage is about 50/50 here. Crawdad has a little more of a rural connotation to it, though; I’d expect to hear it more in the Mars Hill or New Palestine areas than, say, Carmel or Avon.

[born_too_late]

Growing up in Wisconsin, we always called a multi-level parking garage a ‘ramp’. Apparently it’s commonly called a ‘deck’ elsewhere.

[sciurophobic]

For those who call the noon-time meal “dinner” is the meal like what the rest of us call dinner (an entree and sides) or what we call lunch (sandwich and some chips)?

[Simmerdown]

@MOIDALIZE

I’m from Cleveland, where everything about our speech is absolutely perfect. Who knows what a tree lawn is?

In Chicago, I’ve heard the term “tree lawn” refer to the (often grassy) area between the sidewalk and the street that have trees in them, if the beetles haven’t gotten to them yet. Don’t know if it was a transplanted Clevelander that I heard if from or not. I always thought it was pretty common.

[gigi]

@zweisamkeit

A Coney Island is a specific type of diner that sells… Coney Dogs (along with standard Greek/American diner fare). There are diners that aren’t called Coney Islands. But yes, this area is obsessed with them.

I never heard hot dogs called Coneys until I met someone from Texas. And maybe Sonic out there uses that term as well?

[zweisamkeit]

@gigi

I never heard hot dogs called Coneys until I met someone from Texas. And maybe Sonic out there uses that term as well?

Not all hot dogs are coneys, though! A coney is a dog (in bun) w/meat chili, onions and mustard.