Indiana normal
n.— «“Indiana normal” is the term the Fort Wayne physician has coined to refer to the weight of many of his patients. “In a day in my office seeing patients, it’s rare that I see a patient of normal weight,” he says. “If you live in California and you have obesity, you stand out. But in Indiana, you don’t stand out. Obesity is the rule.”» —“State’s obesity angers physician” by Rosa Salter Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.) Nov. 14, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Karina from Maryville, Missouri, disagrees with her mom about whether bowl and bull sound the same. Karina hears them as the same sound, while her mom hears a clear difference. It’s an example of a vowel merger, or sound shift, that occurs in...
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...