So what regional words or pronounciations that you use DIDN’T make it onto the survey? I figure we’d gather 'em up here then send 'em on to dem professors at Hahvad to help 'em out.
For me:
“Boughten” as in the opposite of homemade. I prefer homemade bread to boughten bread. Mr. Athena made fun of me when he first heard me use this, until I found it in some internet dictionary as a “dialect” type of word.
I can tell you one thing about that survey, they didn’t certify their ZIPCODE file. They’ve got all the NoVA zips as beginning with ‘22’ when some of them (like mine) are ‘20’.
Are you from Northern California? I think it’s pretty much a Northern California thing (and more centered in Sacramento than San Francisco), with some limited use in Georgia of all places. I use “hella” (or hekka) constantly, and it makes all my SoCal college friends laugh.
Even Sven, no, I’m not from North Cal. I live in Henderson, NV, and what is wierd is the Las Vegas people don’t seem to use it either. What’s even wierder is this area is influenced ALOT from SoCal. I wonder where it came from.
It drives the hubby mental (as do many of my pronunciations) but what can I do?
Also, you vs y’all… I commented that it depended on whether it was in a formal or informal setting. With friends it’s y’all but in a speech or public speaking deal it is definitely you.
There were a few more but cannot remember them all at the moment.
Oh, also having grown up in the US and now living in the UK I tend to use several of the English words they had. I did make comments to this for most of them, but tried for the most part to stick with how I spoke when younger.
FWIW, my dad is Californian and my mom from Washington. My babysitter was from the deep South and several of my teachers were from outside Oregon (where I grew up). So as you can see my linguistical atmosphere was quite varied.
Seldon, Are you from Jersey? I’ve heard ‘hella’ used around there quite a bit (mainly North Jersey)
I was surprised that nothing adressed rotacization–r-colouring of vowels. As the survey seems to target American English I don’t think there’d much variation, but I’m curious if /r/ insertion would breakdown along geographic lines. For example ‘idea’–ending in /a/ vs ‘idear’–ending in /r/.
Some usages that were current in the Peterborough Ontario area when I was a kid: [ul][li]‘this aft’ for ‘this afternoon’‘chesterfield’ for ‘couch’[/li]This one has pretty-much been displaced by ‘couch’, probably due to the insidious influence of ‘couch potato’. ‘Sofa’ is still very unusual though.[/ul]Of course, being Canadian, we still use ‘hydro’ to mean ‘electric utility service’ (a good test for a dictionary of Canadian English…)
I “turn in” homework - not pass it in, nor hand it in.
Then there were a lot where my pronunciation was partway between the listed ones.
I also know that I had to deliberately learn to say “almond” when we moved from Davis - growing up it was a word that didn’t even begin with an “ah” sound. No “l” anywhere in the word. Later in college, I heard someone say it and knew instantly “northern CA, right?”
The set of “anymore” questions threw me. Is it possible for some of those questions to be acceptable and some unacceptable? Wouldn’t the whole group of them be either one or the other?
I don’t remember seeing “reckon” in that survey, as in: “I reckon I’ll go with y’all to the store.” “I reckon” is something I say often, and also get made fun of for.
I hear “hella” around here, but I think it’s due to MTV’s influence on my student counterparts.
My grandparents said “warsh” instead of “wash” - and I think I did when I was younger. I remember it being something I consciously tried to avoid saying. I don’t say it anymore.
“Idear” is something I grew up hearing, but it’s another thing I don’t say. “Idea” for me.
My government teacher in high school said “oral” instead of “oil” and “ail-yens” instead of “aliens” too. Damn hillbillies.
Oh yeah:
82. What do you call the gooey or dry matter that collects in the corners of your eyes, especially while you are sleeping?
These are called bird turds, people!
92. What do you call it when a driver changes over one or more lanes way too quickly?
I’ve never heard Chinese lane change OR Chinese fire drill used to describe this. I had to check the “other” box and put “asshole” in as my answer.
Also, I was surprised to see that “Maw maw” and “Paw paw” weren’t choices for what you call your grandparents. I called both sets of mine “gramma” and “grampa” - most of my cousins said “maw maw” and “paw paw”.
Yep - I made the same comment. Y’all is my average everyday word, but I would never use it in a formal setting.
[quoteI’ve never heard Chinese lane change OR Chinese fire drill used to describe this. I had to check the “other” box and put “asshole” in as my answer.[/quote]
I put in “stupid”.
I also realized after I finished it that I didn’t see “wicked” in there, and that’s a word I use fairly often in casual speech.
I was surprised not to see Meemaw and Peepaw, or Pappaw. Most of my friends from the Southern US use these terms. They also tend to say “get ON the car, go ON the house, and throw your shoes IN the floor.” And “plug that radio up” rather than in.
My stepdad, who was from Brooklyn, said “warsh” and he also added Rs to the ends of words for no discernible reason. My poor sister thought her name was Linder for years. He also called jeans “dungarees” but that may be more age-related than regional.
One thing I’ve noticed in Chicagoans - not only “where are you at?” and “are you coming with?” but also “going by” instead of “going to” – “I’m going by my sister’s for Christmas dinner.” These three grammatical booboos drive my sister-in-law, a Michigander, completely nuts.
