Tuesday, June 20, 2006

This blog is certified 81% Dixie

Find out if y'all are Yankees or Rebels. It's an online dialect quiz set up by a linguist. Quick and fun. (Hat tip: NPR)

A word about my score: Long-time readers know that I'm not a Kansas native; I was born and raised in Austin and then lived in Houston for three years and Mobile for seven before moving here. But this part of Kansas has a strong southern-central US presence to it, so even here I hear a fair number of southernisms. And that, of course, is another point of the quiz: to reveal something about migration patterns in the U.S.

Update: Another interesting dialect map: Do you say "pop" or "soda"?

Technorati tag:

9 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
FletcherDodge said...

"39% Dixie. You are definitely a Yankee."

Although, I don't really consider myself a Yankee either. They need something for midwesterners. Maybe I'm just an American.

Diana said...

"57% Dixie. Barely in Dixie", I think that probably this is just because I'm closer to South, isn't it? hehe.

Anonymous said...

Well I need a none of the above option to complete this quiz. Looks like I'm just foreign.

Haven't we discussed the soda/pop thing before on here?

John B. said...

F_S,
I did think about you, Grobie and René (elmago) when I posted this; I was wondering if you all would be in some sense left out by the (lack of) choices.

As for having discussed popvssoda.com before, yes; I just couldn't find the post to link to it here. The curious can go here to learn, among other things, that I grew up saying "soda water" and why that might have been.

Anonymous said...

I'm confused by number seven. Surely those can't be the only options, even within the US?

John B. said...

Sounds like something (for someone) to research. I'd think there'd be more options as well, but I know just enough about dialects to know that I don't know very much.

Paul D. said...

I am 30% Dixie. That must come from the 3 years I spent in Georgia. As for pop versus soda, I can barely bring myself to SAY pop but of course my wife from Kansas says pop...so between us I refer to soda as "weasel"....after all it is the weasel that goes POP!

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what I said that caused a 'blog administrator' to delete my post? It would be interesting to know.