US folk: map your language use

[jesse_the_k]

U.S. language research!

It's happening now:

https://www.dialectsofenglish.com

I answered fifty questions and they really made me think. The survey offers various vocabulary and pronunciation options--you can choose one or all, and add chatty comments.

Based on the first box you tick, the survey shows a "heat map" (inaccessible to screen readers) where they think you're from.

Not surprisingly, my language is mixed: most often from Wisconsin and Boston-area.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I was wondering what your answer would be.

Are there other local tells?

There's a way that every body else says "Wisconsin" that makes my skin crawl--too many syllables? too slippery on the first "s"?

[isis]

Oh, yes. Some local shibboleths, by which I mean that even natives who live on the Front Range (the strip of cities running roughly north-south just east of the mountains) will get these wrong:

The name of the town 75 miles north of us, Ouray, is pronounced yur-RAY.

The name of the national park 40 miles west of us, Mesa Verde, is pronounced without the final 'e' by the old-timers here, though I can't bring myself to do this.

The name of the river east of town, and the road that parallels it and then comes into town from the northeast, Florida, is pronounced in the Spanish style, flo-REE-da.

The name of the river east of town that runs through the neighboring town of Bayfield (we have one, too!), Los Pinos, is pronounced "the Pine". Which seriously is the best way of identifying tourists. It says Los Pinos on every map, but nobody calls it anything but the Pine!

[jesse_the_k]

Ouray for Ouray!

but the Pine is the best.