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Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A Way with Words, a radio show and podcast about language and linguistics.

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Discussion of Accents
Guest
1
2010/10/27 – 6:07pm

According to this test, I am “26% Dixie. [I am] a dandy Yankee Doodle.”
According to this test, done by the same people, I am “48% Dixie. Barely in Yankeedom.”

I guess that means I am 37% Dixie.

How about you?

Guest
2
2010/12/02 – 1:44am

Interesting result indeed. Having done the tests in the same order that you did, I scored 15% (“Duke of Yankeedom”) and 40% (Barely in Yankeedom). There were several cases in which I chose an answer that I felt was acceptably close to my pronunciation, a couple that I didn’t answer because none was even close, and one or two that were not part of my experience: I’ve never lived anywhere near a drive-through liquor store, so I have no particular name for it. I have to say that the 15% is a more accurate reflection of reality than the 40%, the first thirty-or-so years spent in Upstate New York, the next in Alaska; but it’s interesting to see that I consciously changed a couple of words I got from my parents that would have given me higher Dixie rating, even though they were both born and raised less than a hundred miles from where I spent my youth: they gave me crick, which I changed to creek in junior high school, and I traded in pop for soda probably in high school. The tests were fun, in any case; I wish they had been more interactive.

Peter

Guest
3
2010/12/02 – 9:28am

4%, then 35%

EmmettRedd
859 Posts
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4
2010/12/02 – 10:20am

68% and 62% probably betrays my southwest Missouri/Ozarks 52 out of 55 years (3 years in Delaware). And the highway beside the Interstate is the “outer road”.

Emmett

Guest
5
2010/12/02 – 10:55am

“8% Dixie. Need help digging out of the snow?”

Second one, 25% Dixie. Sorry, but anyone who picks “bubbler” should automatically be labeled 100% Northerner.

Guest
6
2010/12/02 – 11:05am

11% Dixie on the first, 29% Dixie on the second. No surprises there. I’ve always been a Yankee and was only a Damn Yankee for less than a year.

Guest
7
2010/12/02 – 12:39pm

57% on the first one, 60% on the second.

About half my answers were coming out as Midwest or western Great Lakes (which computes with my south-east Minnesota bringup), and the other half were Southern (which computes with rural Missouri where I live now).

Guest
8
2010/12/03 – 7:17am

My scores came up the same on both tests–30% Dixie. At least I’m consistent.

Guest
9
2010/12/07 – 10:36pm

CheddarMelt said:

Second one, 25% Dixie. Sorry, but anyone who picks “bubbler” should automatically be labeled 100% Northerner.


Yeah, but they should be incredibly aware of every answer on these quizzes, particularly for the questions for which there isn’t a good answer for the Sconites, Northern Minnesotans, and Uppers (also if one said “Pop” for soda, though that’s less region-specific). I grew up in the military and have moved to every corner of this country since, so I couldn’t help be aware of regional differences as I answered. I also deliberately choose some regionalisms for personal affect in my personal speech, because I’m an ass, and they have become part of my normal speech; so I pronounce words such as naked as NEK-id, just to be . . . hmmm, odd, I guess? From all that, I now have the deeply introspective questions of why I chose to answer everything with the Northern answer rather than the Southern (the region in which I’ve spent most of my life). Damn—thanks, Twisted Logic, for making me think about myself, and why I do what I do.

And I got 11% and 58% Dixie, so who the hell knows where I’m from?

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