A Sub by any other name....
September 23, 2005 2:41 PM   Subscribe

A Sub by any other name.... Professor Vaux has put together a little survey of American as she is spoke. The survey covers a myriad of areas and the results wind up on some really interesting maps. It's on going, so feel free to take the challenge
posted by IndigoJones (15 comments total)
 
Awesome! Rad! Dude, that's Killer! Can you tell where I'm from now?

I love this. It would be interesting (though probably impossible) to have time-series of these maps - I suspect language is increasingly homogenized and it would be cool to see that happening.

Oh, and something about "j. I have no word for what you describe." just really gets me. I don't know why.
posted by freebird at 2:49 PM on September 23, 2005


A double post by any other name...

Sorry, couldn't resist. This is still a very interesting topic and a good post. And besides, the site has moved.
posted by sour cream at 2:59 PM on September 23, 2005


Choice d: peenie wallie

Peenie wallie? Peenie wallie? It's a firefly, goddammit!
posted by interrobang at 3:02 PM on September 23, 2005


interrobang writes "Peenie wallie? Peenie wallie? It's a firefly, goddammit!"

It's a gerflubbit goobersputnik, I tell ya!
posted by Bugbread at 3:09 PM on September 23, 2005


I swear, I looked. (Okay, not two years out, but it is ongoing, there are new members, and, as you note, the site has moved- which is exactly what happened last time.)
posted by IndigoJones at 3:13 PM on September 23, 2005


Just in case anyone missed the reference.
posted by clawtros at 3:56 PM on September 23, 2005


It is a really cool site. It's interesting to me that when I looked it over, where I live (Denver) seems to be such a hodgepodge. We don't have much of our own speech patterns here.
posted by teece at 4:19 PM on September 23, 2005


A sub? I thought the post was going to talk about Doms and S&M...ah, well.
posted by Postroad at 5:45 PM on September 23, 2005


Where's the ask/axe dichotomy?
posted by Eideteker at 7:42 PM on September 23, 2005


My favorite question, and one that has a clear regional bias: on line/in line
posted by amberglow at 7:45 PM on September 23, 2005


Eideteker, in some regional variants (notably ebonics), people pronounce "ask" like "axe", as in, "I hafta axe' you a question." I don't know about where else, but I used to hear it all the time in my hometown of Baltimore (along with the inevitible bevy of schoolmarms warning against mispronounciation).
posted by mowglisambo at 7:54 PM on September 23, 2005


I honestly can't believe I filled that whole thing out. I gotta get outta here...
posted by Kloryne at 8:12 PM on September 23, 2005


Oh, and of(t)en. Tell me where I may direct the bombs to wipe out the scourge of people who pronounce the T!
posted by Eideteker at 11:12 PM on September 23, 2005


What's most interesting about the maps is how little variation there really is in many of these.

It would be interesting to see these broken down by class or education. I mean look only at high income earners and plot the map for them, then do maps for middle-income and low-income. My hunch is that what you'd see is that the maps for high-income earners would be more homogenous and the maps for low-income earners would show more regional variation.

Supposedly that's how it works for accents in England. The upper-class have the same accents all over the country, and the lower down the ladder you go, the more regional variation you see.

They're collecting income and education data, I wonder if they're going to look at that sort of thing.
posted by duck at 12:54 PM on September 24, 2005


Where's the ask/axe dichotomy?

It's just before you get to the 'you bet' zone. 400+ questions? Exhaustive is the word for this, with emphasis on the first 'x.'
posted by fixedgear at 2:24 PM on September 25, 2005


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