What *do* you call a drive through liquor store?
September 28, 2013 3:19 AM   Subscribe

In 2003 there was the 2003 Harvard dialect survey. (Previous) which was taken up by Joshua Katz for a PhD project looking at regional dialect variation in the continental US (previous). Now he has created a quiz that takes this data and tells you where in the continental US they speak like you. For the ambitious, there's also the full 140 question version.
posted by MartinWisse (171 comments total) 57 users marked this as a favorite
 
I take these every time I come across them because I enjoy seeing just how tiny the region where they (we) speak like me is.
posted by jenfromri at 3:43 AM on September 28, 2013


My dialect is a weird mix of Eastern Canadian and North Carolina and now a little layer of New York on top (I caught myself saying "on line" rather than "in line" last week), and it puts me in... New York City.

I'm curious if I would get different results for a map that included Canada; I might not get in there purely on the grounds that I'll say "you all" for a group of people.
posted by Jeanne at 3:45 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


This was remarkably accurate on the short survey. It was blood red for the Seattle are of Washington, where I've lived my entire life.

Oddly though, it said Reno nv was the city I'm most similar too. I'm sitting right here with my friend who grew up there for her whole childhood/teens. We sound NOTHING alike and have very different mannerisms. More data needed maybe?
posted by emptythought at 3:50 AM on September 28, 2013


Oklahoma? God damn it.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 3:50 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


I grew up in rural Ontario (Canada), and this quiz places me in Pennsylvania so, pretty close?

But let me tell you, I lived in Philly for three years and I did not feel like I spoke the local dialect.
posted by 256 at 3:51 AM on September 28, 2013


Yonkers.

Really Internet quiz? Yonkers?
posted by Ad hominem at 3:54 AM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'd never heard any of the more colorful expressions for 'rain when the sun is shining', and now it has me thinking about other people and what their lives must be like.
posted by fontor at 3:59 AM on September 28, 2013 [9 favorites]


If you held a lighter under Utah it would look a lot like my map, and I'm from the west of Ireland.

For a couple of them though my answer was different depending on whether I'm talking to my family or if I'm in a job interview. (I went with the family answer).

The question about an "easy course" I just had to stop and marvel at a bit.
posted by rollick at 3:59 AM on September 28, 2013


I grew up just outside Oregon, but apparently I speak most likely speak like someone from western Pennsylvania. Hmm...
posted by efalk at 4:00 AM on September 28, 2013


Take the long one. My results from the short version pinned me as Baltimore and Yonkers (when I'm from southern CT), but the long version gave me my top three as New Haven, Bridgeport, and Waterbury CT, which is basically dead on.
posted by pemberkins at 4:01 AM on September 28, 2013


Nailed me as being in Baltimore or dc, since I grew up directly in between them.
posted by empath at 4:01 AM on September 28, 2013


I've lived most my life in Minneapolis and my map had dark red patches for central Minnesota and parts of the Pacific NW. Much of the west was pretty red.
posted by Area Man at 4:04 AM on September 28, 2013


Frighteningly accurate!
posted by notreally at 4:06 AM on September 28, 2013


Nailed me as a Philadelphian even though I have lived abroad for a decade and several of the questions had me stumped.
posted by Literaryhero at 4:10 AM on September 28, 2013


According to this survey, the place where Americans speak most like New Zealanders is Minneapolis. I hope I didn't screw up their data...
posted by lollusc at 4:14 AM on September 28, 2013 [4 favorites]


So apparently a Harvard study produced a map of regional dialects that's dead accurate for the areas around New England and the original colonies but then becomes a hazy blur when it comes to the other 30 states that comprise 80% of the country.

Yeah, that sounds about right.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 4:15 AM on September 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


I just got a bunch of cities in the Los Angeles/Orange/San Diego area (Santa Ana, Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Oceanside, Anaheim). The only city on the list I've lived in was ranked #4. Very boring. I was hoping I'd find out I had a dialect most similar to Maljamar, NM or something. My complete opposite is apparently Philadelphia.
posted by Redfield at 4:16 AM on September 28, 2013


"What do you call a traffic situation in which several roads meet in a circle and you have to get off at a certain point?" I want to know why "A fucking terrible idea" wasn't an option.
posted by Apoch at 4:19 AM on September 28, 2013 [11 favorites]


Colorado childhood + college in Massachusetts and SoCal + a decade and a half in the Pacific Northwest with a spouse from northern Ontario apparently → The Bay Area, dialect-wise.

Interesting.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:21 AM on September 28, 2013


Very interesting. In the dialect world I apparently am more of a Massachussan than a Mainer, which I guess makes sense, since although I am from Portland, ME, I lived in a lot of other places from age 17 to 32.
posted by miss tea at 4:21 AM on September 28, 2013


Also:

I was absolutely floored to learn that the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the road has multiple, different names. I didn't know there was even one name for it.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:24 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Traffic circles rock! One of the suburbs near me has started to put them in and they work brilliantly. The traffic flows much better at those intersections.
posted by Area Man at 4:34 AM on September 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


I think we may have killed it. Or my internet connection is rubbish, which is also true.
posted by hoyland at 4:34 AM on September 28, 2013


I'm trying to take the 140-question survey now, and it's very very slow. (I wish there was a mid-sized quiz, or an option to bail out partway and get the results from that...)
posted by Jeanne at 4:36 AM on September 28, 2013


Yeah, it's working for me now, but glacially.
posted by hoyland at 4:39 AM on September 28, 2013


Same here. I'm switching between MeFi and the survey.
posted by Area Man at 4:41 AM on September 28, 2013


So apparently a Harvard study produced a map of regional dialects that's dead accurate for the areas around New England and the original colonies but then becomes a hazy blur when it comes to the other 30 states that comprise 80% of the country.

Yeah, that sounds about right.


For what it's worth, the quiz nailed my weird mixture of St. Louis and generic New England accents. I would guess the fuzziness in the middle of the country is more due to population density.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 4:43 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'll take the longer quiz later, but it's funny, the closest to my speech patterns would be Flint, Michigan, which is my mother's hometown. At first that was a shock, but in retrospect its pretty obvious. Still, sort of weird.

Was it just me, or did the "name of the strip of grass between opposite lanes" list not offer 'median?'
posted by Ghidorah at 4:44 AM on September 28, 2013 [8 favorites]


Short quiz says Richmond, VA or Baltimore.

I think the "y'all" I picked up in Texas might have skewed my results.
posted by louche mustachio at 4:44 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


"What is "the City"?"

If I pick Chicago, isn't it just going to tell me I'm from Chicago? Even though I wouldn't actually refer to Chicago as 'the City'?
posted by hoyland at 4:45 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


The question about "The City" is bogus and I skipped it. "The City" is the city you are close to when you are not actually IN a city.

As in, "Fuck off, Work People, I'm on vacation. I will answer your emails/texts/calls when I am back in The City."
posted by louche mustachio at 4:51 AM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


I did answer Chicago. It sort of nailed me with Naperville, Joliet and Aurora (which I'm guessing might be the only Chicago suburbs that are options), with 46.5, 46 and 45.6, respectively. I'm kind of curious what numbers people are getting, as some of my answers were 'wrong' for those that dialect. But it's not clear how dissimilar 46 is from 30, which apparently indicates I'm not from Pittsburgh or Worcester, MA.

Curiously, I have a bright red spot in central eastern New York, which I wouldn't have expected. (And less bright red in the South Bay, which sort of makes sense, plus Seattle, Portland and Reno.)
posted by hoyland at 4:56 AM on September 28, 2013


Interesting. When I took the long version, it gave me highest dialect similarity with the Bay Area, and high similarity with the West Coast in general. When I did the short-form quiz, it gave me the highest level of similarity with eastern Michigan, which had showed up as just a vaguely warm spot before. Interesting.

I wonder if it's because the "devil's night" question wound up with a lot more weight in the shorter version. (I lived in Ann Arbor for a couple of years-- just long enough to pick that up, apparently.)
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:58 AM on September 28, 2013


I did the short version the other day and got a nice red zone over the area in North Carolina where my parents are from with the city they were both born and raised in (Greensboro) in my top 3. Interestingly, it was noticeably lighter around Raleigh, where I lived for the first 13 years of my life, but which also has a higher proportion of people born outside the state and their kids. I was fairly impressed.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:59 AM on September 28, 2013


I'll have to come back to this; it froze completely on #19 of the short questionnaire.

As to rotaries, my town took out the one we had, and replaced it with an abortion consisting of 4 traffic-light-controlled intersections. The rotary was far better, minor rear-end accidents and all.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:03 AM on September 28, 2013


You say pajaamas and I say pajahmas,
Let's take the damn things off.
posted by tommyD at 5:05 AM on September 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm from the UK (London) and according to the 25-question version my speech is most like people from NYC.
posted by Lotto at 5:06 AM on September 28, 2013


It put me in Jackson, MS - where my mother grew up - even though I was born and raised in Tennessee. This would make my mother happy, as it has been one of her goals in life to ensure her children didn't talk like hillbillies.
posted by frobozz at 5:08 AM on September 28, 2013


My only complaint about the questions is that there's no option for when your mother's sisters are "ants" and your father's sisters are "aunts."
posted by Banky_Edwards at 5:12 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


One of the cities that speaks the least like me (I use the inversion because I am, after all, the Measure of All Things) is Worchester, MA. Which was comforting because, the few times I have been in Worchester, I was unsure if the people there speak a language or even really communicate. It's a strange town.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:14 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Not much happening in the Hero house this evening, so I decided to dothe longer version. It pinned me down even more accurately as a Philadelphian, so for me at least it is accurate. I noticed a lot of similar questions about the use of the word 'anymore' which I would only ever use in the negative or in asking a question.

I also noticed how personally I take pronunciation and language. I am usually a well mannered dude, but I found myself thinking "What kind of stupid asshole pronounces the word like that!?" Maybe it is some sort of barbarians at the gate tribalism that causes me to get worked up about regional variances, but I found my reaction to be somewhat surprising.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:19 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I love that mine showed up as dark red for both Miami (hometown) and New York (dad's a Boro Park Yeshiva boy). The survey should have just told me "Who's a Jew? YOU'S A JEW" instead of showing a map
posted by jake at 5:23 AM on September 28, 2013 [15 favorites]


it's strange that they don't ask where your parents are from at the end... but maybe that would be too personal.

short form says i'm from the coasts, most likely california... which is at least half-right. but it did get a hot spot in northern minnesota where my mother's family learned english.

(long form is dead. or deeed)
posted by ennui.bz at 5:26 AM on September 28, 2013


It put me right around St. Louis with a lot of similarities through Southern Illinois and Indiana. This is just about right. Over my life I've kind of drifted North in my dialect from the more Southern Ohio River Valley twang I grew up with.

One of the questions that I always think should be on these is "What did you call this growing up: [picture of bell pepper]?" with one of the answers being "mango". I can place you somewhere in the Ohio River area between Ohio and Indiana North of Kentucky without fail if you check mango.

One of the funnier things I noticed this Summer with my accent is that when I went home to Indiana my voice recognition software that I had trained stopped working reliably. It is like I got South of Bloomington and my software said "wut?".
posted by Tchad at 5:28 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


You can take the girl out of Utah but you can't take the Utah out of the girl. And I thought I was blending in on the east coast.
posted by jenjenc at 5:36 AM on September 28, 2013


I was kind of wondering what effect not living in the States for 14 years would have. I know that I use a mishmash of all sorts of words I've picked up from being friends with people from all kinds of different English speaking backgrounds, and also being involved in ESL the whole time. Evidently not a huge change, though I swear I never said beer koozie before I started hanging out with a Texan.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:38 AM on September 28, 2013


Parents from Baltimore, grew up in Indiana, but apparently I talk like I'm from San Francisco ( or St.Louis ). Huh?
posted by leotrotsky at 5:40 AM on September 28, 2013


How is it "Fuckwittery" wasn't an option for "what do you call the behavior of crossing multiple lanes of traffic unexpectedly?" ( or some such behavior)
posted by Mojojojo at 5:52 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


The question about "The City" is bogus and I skipped it.

People from New York City proper want you to know that they're from "the City" and will proudly share that information with you at every chance they get.
posted by jsavimbi at 5:53 AM on September 28, 2013 [4 favorites]


Long form nailed me as a 50/50 split of Boston and New York. I would have figured it would be all red between those two cities, but was surprised to see orange and yellow in Western Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Also saw a red blob down in South Florida, for all the obvious reasons.
posted by slkinsey at 5:55 AM on September 28, 2013


Grew up in Newfoundland, spent the last 10 years bouncing across Canada...apparently I live in a suburb of Houston. Weird.
posted by Lemurrhea at 5:55 AM on September 28, 2013


Grew up in Ottawa, short test said I was closest in dialect to Providence RI and Newark NJ.
posted by Yowser at 5:57 AM on September 28, 2013


Oh, and all the cities that don't speak like me are in Texas (with one outlier in Oklahoma). Now that makes me a happy camper.
posted by Yowser at 6:00 AM on September 28, 2013


The question about "the City" is bogus and I skipped it.

I think the question speaks as to whether "the City" is commonly used as shorthand for the name of the city. Not whether it might be commonly used in the same way one might say, "I'm going downtown."

Do people in Chicago, Boston, etc. use "the City" that way? In NYC, "the City" is the common way to say "Manhattan as opposed to a borough." I grew up in the Boston area (Newton) and don't recall "the City" being used this way. One would speak of Southie or Back Bay or Brighton or Dorchester or whatever, and actually Cambridge seemed a lot more "the City" than plenty of places within the city limits of Boston.
posted by slkinsey at 6:13 AM on September 28, 2013


Or, if you're from Minnesota but not Minneapolis or St. Paul, it's "the Cities."
posted by OHSnap at 6:16 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


In the Chicago burbs, we used "the city" in the sense of "going into the city" for a night out/sports event/whathaveyou. The burbs were definitely not "the city," that was Chicago.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:17 AM on September 28, 2013


The short form pegged me as either being from Philadelphia or Newark so I guess that the quarter century that I've lived in Pittsburgh hasn't made a dent in my Jersey upbringing. You can never escape Jersey, I guess.
posted by octothorpe at 6:20 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I took the big quiz.

Newark, NJ, where I've never even been, is my nearest city.

My parents are from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and I grew up in Garrett County, way at the other end of Maryland.

Some of my other "nearest cities" were in Virginia, so I guess it's not broken or anything.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:22 AM on September 28, 2013


Oh, and what the hell is going on with those people who apparently use "anymore" to refer to a change to a new ongoing activity rather then the cessation of an activity?
posted by slkinsey at 6:24 AM on September 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


I grew up in Chicago and I would never refer Chicago as the city because the idea that you were talking about Chicago was assumed.

I took the short quiz, and my first choice was Chicago, then Joliet and various other Chicago suburbs. Least like was the Northeast, despite the fact that I lived there for four years. The six years in Minneapolis haven't seemed to made a dent, either, but maybe they haven't heard me say Minnesota.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:25 AM on September 28, 2013


OK, where in the US is the phenomenon of precipitation while the sun is shining called "the devil is beating his wife"? Because I might have to visit there.
posted by pianissimo at 6:31 AM on September 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


OK, this is unexpected. Apparently my usage has most in common with Florida (especially the SE parts of the state) *and* the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. And less so, but still orange, with the northern plain states. I lived in So. Fla. for most of my life, right, but Minnesota? huh.

I have no idea how that happens.

(Also, did anyone else have a little voice in there head saying "The right way" when thinking about how you pronounce things?)
posted by oddman at 6:33 AM on September 28, 2013


OK, where in the US is the phenomenon of precipitation while the sun is shining called "the devil is beating his wife"?

Probably Mississippi or Loozianna.

And a good old rain shine is what we get around these parts pretty often this year -- rain when the sun is shining. It's the one mercy of the sometimes relentless rain in the Pacific Northwest.
posted by amanda at 6:34 AM on September 28, 2013


I would definitely call downtown Boston "the city", if not "the City", to distinguish it from Newton/Watertown/Waltham, and points west. Of course, I am a transplant who says "MetroWest" unironically, so YMMV.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:42 AM on September 28, 2013


Quite fluent in Michiganese. I'd say nasal Ann Arbor with Flint regional tones with a touch of scattered Dow (midland)

laundrymat (l�n'-dr-mt) n.1.corruption of 'laundromat': "We don't have our own washer, so we do our laundry at the laundrymat."

is is (z' z) v...
2.corruption of 'is that': "The problem is is that we don't have enough money for that."

That can turn to "dat" in quickly.
posted by clavdivs at 6:43 AM on September 28, 2013


I haven't been able to get this to work yet, but I'm going to make a very, very safe bet that it tells me I am from Texas. These things always tell me I am from Texas. Most likely because I am from Texas.

I was raised in north Texas, but now I teach on the border and I'm really curious to see what results my students would get. 99% of them are Mexican or Mexican-American, and their vocabulary is noticeably different from mine. One little example: I, family man that I am, drive a Toyota Sienna, which I would only ever refer to as a "van" or a "minivan." Everyone else here calls it a truck. Trucks for me are either pick-ups or semis, but never, ever vans. Vans are a completely different thing. (I'm guessing they all speak a dialect of Spanish where one word covers both and have retained that in English, but I haven't checked.) They also call their aunts awnts, whereas Anglo Texans all say "ants." I find that really interesting, too. Even third-generation English speakers here have that pronunciation, which no other place in Texas does. Wherever they are learning English from, it isn't from speakers of the standard Texan dialect. Laredo English is a dialect of its own.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:44 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hm. I'm a little thrown by the short survey. And, I agree, the use of y'all is something that is probably dragging me toward the South. It would be awesome if you could toggle some of these answers and see where they go.

I'm hottest in Texas, Oklahoma and Florida. Not hot at all in Northeastern area of the U.S. (which is a place neither I nor my family has hardly been). I did spend six years in Mississippi and my husband and his family are rooted in Arkansas so I suppose there's something going on there. Kansas is pretty warm which is where my mother was raised but the Pacific Northwest is fairly low and I've now lived nearly all of my adult life in Oregon, and my father and his family are Seattle and Portland. Although, he really didn't seem to hold on to much of his Norwegian heritage.

As a military brat, growing up in and out of the U.S., I have picked up a lot of weird stuff. Maybe I like that it doesn't pin me down to one spot but Texas? Huh. Maybe we all like to talk like Texans a little bit?
posted by amanda at 6:45 AM on September 28, 2013


What term do you use for a otherwise interesting web site that is so slow it makes you crazy, but you hang in to see where you fit in a quiz?
posted by cccorlew at 6:47 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


What term do you use for a otherwise interesting web site that is so slow it makes you crazy, but you hang in to see where you fit in a quiz?

A piddle.
posted by amanda at 6:48 AM on September 28, 2013


Slashdotted.
posted by oddman at 6:48 AM on September 28, 2013


Has me in St. Louis (specifically just south of the city), Cincinnati, or Lexington.

I'm from Cincinnati, but I've changed the words I use for some things because the local way sometimes grates on me. My wife is from Minnesota, and our friends are from all over, so I think I've co-opted certain things from other areas.

Specifically the pop/soda thing. Pop sounds so funny, even though that's what they call it here.
posted by OHSnap at 6:49 AM on September 28, 2013


And, in any case, OHSnap, it's all just coke.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
posted by oddman at 6:52 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Okay, getting it to work now. The grassy strip between two sections of a street is a median for me, and it seems weird that that isn't an option. I've always called easy classes "Mickey Mouse courses," but I don't see that listed, either.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:52 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Pater, the lack of "median" seemed weird to me too. We call those courses underwater basket weaving (but now that you mention it, I do remember Mickey Mouse being used, too).
posted by oddman at 6:54 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Underwater basket weaving seems like it would be really hard to do, though!
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:58 AM on September 28, 2013


Oh, the "pecan" question. Seriously, you PEE-CAN people, there are other options. NO, I DO NOT WANT TO TRY YOUR PEE CAN PIE.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:00 AM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


What the hell is an easy course? A meal? A class? A racetrack? I don't recognize any of these words.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:05 AM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


Nailed me. I'm a California guy, live in teh Bay Area, but spent my first 10 years in the central valley.

What's that "Been" question near the end about?
posted by cccorlew at 7:05 AM on September 28, 2013


My only complaint about the questions is that there's no option for when your mother's sisters are "ants" and your father's sisters are "aunts."


I haven't taken it yet, but I was wondering if it accounts for that sort of dialectical fine-tuning. My grandparents, who would both be closing in on the century mark if they were still around and who both grew up in the same small town, spoke in a manner that suggested one 'washed' dishes but 'warshed' clothes.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:08 AM on September 28, 2013


Slashdotted.

nice use of archaism... time traveller from 1999?

someone should collect data on txt-speech... is it regionalized too?
posted by ennui.bz at 7:08 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


What *do* you call a drive through liquor store?

Necessary, but not sufficient.
posted by bswinburn at 7:08 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Eastern Kentucky is dark red for me, which is pretty darned accurate. I had only one minor quibble with the choices (aside from all the questions irrelevant to those of us who grew up nowhere near a city). It's a "tater bug", not a "potato bug".
posted by HillbillyInBC at 7:15 AM on September 28, 2013


The short version put me firmly in western Michigan, which is geographically backwards — I grew up in the southeastern part of the state — but I suspect what they actually mean is "You talk like a white guy from Michigan," in which case yes that is absolutely correct I talk so damn white, proximity to Detroit notwithstanding.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 7:32 AM on September 28, 2013


What's that "Been" question near the end about?

'been' and 'bean' are homophones for me. (But, afaik, not in any American dialect, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong.)
posted by hoyland at 7:37 AM on September 28, 2013


Apparently my similar cities are Syracuse/Rochester NY and San Francisco CA.

I would have guessed that they talk completely differently in upstate NY. Now I want to go visit there.

I wonder if our television watching habits affect how we talk.
posted by eye of newt at 7:41 AM on September 28, 2013


Okay, all done. I am pure North and West Texan, with the most similar cities being Abilene and Lubbock, where I went to college undergrad/grad. Apparently I would blend in just fine in Oklahoma and Arkansas, though, which I have really mixed feelings about.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:41 AM on September 28, 2013


I call a drive through liquor store what the fuck who thought that was a good idea?
posted by kmz at 7:56 AM on September 28, 2013 [6 favorites]


OK, where in the US is the phenomenon of precipitation while the sun is shining called "the devil is beating his wife"?

Probably Mississippi or Loozianna.

Ay-yup. I can't help but use this term every time it happens so that people appreciate the bluesy wisdom of my voodoo upbringing. I think this is how it propagates.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:08 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


After the short quiz, I got Boston/Plymouth/Lowell, which is definitely right, but also Yonkers/Newark, which surprises me.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:25 AM on September 28, 2013


Fremont, Sunnyvale, and LA? I've only been to Cali once. Arlington and DC, on the other hand...
posted by tooloudinhere at 8:28 AM on September 28, 2013


Not from the bay area. I don't (currently) live in the bay area. nevertheless, I catch myself referring to San Francisco as "The City" on a regular basis. Sigh.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:29 AM on September 28, 2013


OK, where in the US is the phenomenon of precipitation while the sun is shining called "the devil is beating his wife"? Because I might have to visit there.

If my husband is any indication, the answer to this is "South Carolina".

Yes, I tell him regularly that he talks funny. And then my accent and I go stand on line to warsh the dooawg.
posted by badgermushroomSNAKE at 8:53 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Native of Asheville, NC. Lifelong North Carolinian. Child of Parents from Mississippi Delta/Southern Virginia.

According to this survey I sound like I'm from either New Jersey or Baltimore.
posted by thivaia at 8:59 AM on September 28, 2013


The 25-question version (though slow as molasses (apparently that's another regionalism. I heard "slow as Christmas" from a southerner the other day and was like "whaaa?")) hit the nail on the head for me, pegging Newark, NJ, which is the nearest non-NYC city to where I grew up in northern NJ. Pretty much the entire map for me was blue, other than NYC metro, which was shades of reddish-black radiating into the tri-state area.
posted by badgermushroomSNAKE at 9:11 AM on September 28, 2013


Is this going terribly slow for anyone else?
posted by codacorolla at 9:15 AM on September 28, 2013


badgermushroomSNAKE , an interesting one I heard once was "slower than pond water." I can't even get it to load. I guess MeFites have crashed it.
posted by Daddy-O at 9:16 AM on September 28, 2013


'been' and 'bean' are homophones for me. (But, afaik, not in any American dialect, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong.)
posted by hoyland at 7:37 AM on September 28 [+] [!]

What? Yes, yes they are homophones. How can they not be homophones?!

And 'traffic circles'? 'Rotaries'?? What tomfoolery is this?!

Drive-thru liquor stores (aka 'bottle shops') are a stellar invention, and also the only kind I bother going to.

This is just all-round fascinating, and I've only read the comments so far, since the website won't load. I'm waiting impatiently for it to get unborked, so I can find out where in the U.S. speaks most Strayan*.

(*Australian)
posted by Salamander at 9:23 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


"What? Yes, yes they are homophones. How can they not be homophones?!"

Because they are pronounced as bin and been, respectively.
posted by oddman at 9:40 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm a linguistic mongrel who bounced between Newfoundland and Southern Ontario for most of my youth, yet somehow ended up with an accent from Yonkers?
posted by peppermind at 9:41 AM on September 28, 2013


What? Yes, yes they are homophones. How can they not be homophones?!

Here in MERICA we clearly can't come to any consensus whatsoever, except for the fact that one is "benn" and t'other is "beeeen".
posted by graphnerd at 9:50 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Or what oddman said. Is that "odd-MAN" or "ODD-min", by the way?
posted by graphnerd at 9:51 AM on September 28, 2013


What? Yes, yes they are homophones. How can they not be homophones?!"

Because they are pronounced as bin and been, respectively.


"Where has Ben been?" "Where has that bin been?" and "Where has the bean been?"
The first one is said like "Where has Ben Ben?" to me.
posted by eye of newt at 9:51 AM on September 28, 2013


What on earth is an 'easy course'?

The map is...close, I guess. It puts me in North Carolina, with lesser degrees of northern South Carolina and western Georgia. I'm from Georgia, living now in South Carolina, and have never lived in any of the areas it really strongly suggests.

What this means, of course, is that I've got to start learning some new words for things. And quit pronouncing merry/Mary/marry the same way.
posted by mittens at 9:58 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Graphnerd, it's actually pronounced "bubbles," emphasis on the fourth syllable, and it rhymes with peacock.

(or, odd-MAN, take your pick).
posted by oddman at 9:59 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


OHSnap: "Or, if you're from Minnesota but not Minneapolis or St. Paul, it's 'the Cities.'"

That's true if you're from the Cities, too. It just gets used when you're not in the Cities. As in, "When are we planning to leave the cabin and head back to the Cities?"
posted by jiawen at 10:10 AM on September 28, 2013


The short quiz located me in northern California instead of southern California, I think partly because I said "other" for what city "the City" refers to. I was thinking "the City" = San Francisco, since the only time I used the term was when I lived in the Bay Area.

Does anyone in the LA-area or southern California refer to LA as the City? I've never really heard it. LA is so sprawling and has so many neighborhoods that it seems totally unhelpful to refer to it as "the City" in general. It seems like people outside of Los Angeles proper refer to it as LA, and people in LA county refer to it either as LA or the specific neighborhood they're going to (i.e. "I'm going downtown" or "I need to be in West LA in an hour"). I don't think I've ever heard the generic "the City" for LA.
posted by yasaman at 10:11 AM on September 28, 2013


Ugh Boise? Really? Man I guess I speak like a mix between the west coast and the midwest.
posted by Carillon at 10:17 AM on September 28, 2013


I love quizzes like this for the questions I really want to answer in multiple parts. For instance if it comes in a can it's a coke, in a bottle or on tap it's soda and if it is really fancy or expensive it's a soft drink. Or when you are dodging them on the freeway they are semis, but in ones or twos, especially when on city streets, they are big rigs. And I can't even explain when it's a frying pan and when it is a skillet, but I know there is a rule in my brain.

Also after saying it 20 times I still have no idea how I pronounce pecan.
posted by aspo at 10:34 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


For y'all confused about "easy course": they mean an easy class in high school or college.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:35 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Correctly identified me as a through-and-through Masshole (impressive, since while I retain all my non-standard native vowels, I have picked up some major Southern vocabulary through a number of years spent there). Weirdly, my most markedly dissimilar area centers around Michigan and extends into Ohio and across Chicagoland into Iowa. Any other New Englanders get this?
posted by threeants at 10:36 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Well, 4.5 hours later I've managed to complete the long version. In the interest of National Security, and also to avoid scandalizing the peanut gallery, I will not divulge the results.
posted by flug at 10:41 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Not quite sure what to make of my results. I spent most of my life on the Central California coast, yet my most similar city is Syracuse, a city that I've never even visited. My number two city is Madison, which makes more sense, as my mom grew up there and I went to college at UW. I always suspected that I picked up a lot of my linguistic traits from my mom.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 10:43 AM on September 28, 2013


Response time was so slow, I imagined a human interviewer writing down my answer on a pad.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:50 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Using a series of substandard pens which were eventually exchanged for a very dull pencil, yes.
posted by elizardbits at 10:51 AM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


dust kittens?

I had no idea. Also, I wonder how the researcher will account for those of us who grew up a country mouse but are now a city mouse, with attendant vocabulary (see: supper vs. dinner).
posted by hapax_legomenon at 10:58 AM on September 28, 2013


I thought I understood the supper/dinner distinction but then I heard british friends referring to the evening meal as "tea" and all was cast forever into disarray.
posted by elizardbits at 11:00 AM on September 28, 2013


Also my map is a vast field of deep blue with one red dot on NYC and some orange shading in northern Jersey and the elderly jewish zones of Florida.

so accurate
posted by elizardbits at 11:04 AM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'd like this website to send a text alert to my cellphone when it's loaded the next question.

Seriously, why couldn't they have just put all the questions on one page?
posted by crapmatic at 11:09 AM on September 28, 2013


I'm afraid I'm not going to make it through all 140 questions in 30 minutes and will get booted out before I'm done. It's already been 20 minutes and I'm only on question 93! That will make me sad/piss me off (no need to choose one).
posted by hapax_legomenon at 11:16 AM on September 28, 2013


Born and raised in Tulsa. Said I speak most like Tulsans. Despite living in LA for 10 years. Now I wonder what these Angelinos think of me.
posted by fishmasta at 11:25 AM on September 28, 2013


I'm apparently best suited for Tulsa (where I've never been), or several cities in Virginia, although I suspect that's because I would call a drive-through liquor store a brew-through if I had access to any, which I don't.

And yeah, median is the grassy bit between lanes. Everything else on the short quiz had the exact term I use, even the aunt/ant pronunciation that differs on whether it's aunts in general or a specific aunt.

Who calls the bug that glows from its hindquarters a peenie wallie?
posted by mgar at 11:35 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, that and the "wolf's wedding" or whatever it was for sunshine when it's raining, and "spider" for a frying pan... Was someone trolling?
posted by jiawen at 11:50 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Those all seem like terms that australians would make up to troll americans, which is really unnecessary because pretty much anyone on earth will immediately believe any "fact" you tell them about australia, no matter how odd or contrived. IT IS A LAND OF MYSTERY.
posted by elizardbits at 11:53 AM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


What do I call a drive-through liquor store?

Damn confusing.

It's bad enough reading the 76 item list of hamburgs, fries or tots, shakes, drinks, cones, etc at a hamburger joint, but the small print at the liquor store--crap, I'll just go in and pick out the right bottle shape.

Yes, I do need my glasses checked. Why do you ask?
posted by BlueHorse at 1:02 PM on September 28, 2013


I grew up in the south, but I watched so much TV and so many movies as a kid that my accent is pretty standard...what? Mid-west?
posted by zardoz at 1:08 PM on September 28, 2013


What do you call a public railway system (normally underground)?
* subway
* BART


There's a few questions like this where it seems like the survey's trying to slam dunk an answer. Might as well ask "How do you pronounce the first letter of your state? A, B, C, or D?"
posted by crapmatic at 2:08 PM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


This thing still isn't loading for me dammit.
posted by Justinian at 2:09 PM on September 28, 2013


It would be awesome if you could toggle some of these answers and see where they go.

You can look at the survey maps for each question, though that part of the site is also painfully slow.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:10 PM on September 28, 2013


jiawen: "spider" for a frying pan... Was someone trolling?

Heh. An iron spider is a cast iron pan with three short legs, for use in a fire.

And 'drive through bottleo' is the only correct answer to the title question!
posted by goo at 2:11 PM on September 28, 2013


HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO COMPLETE A 140 QUESTION QUIZ IN 30 MINUTES WHEN IT TAKES 45 SECONDS TO LOAD EACH QUESTION.
posted by Justinian at 2:22 PM on September 28, 2013


Justinian: it took me far longer than 30 minutes due to the aforementioned loading issues. I did not get booted out. Don't stress!
posted by hapax_legomenon at 2:26 PM on September 28, 2013


I'm kind of in awe at the ridiculousness of my map. Grew up in western NY, and it's appropriately red for that, but my 5 years in NC also seems to have had a strong influence. I guess that I have a WNY accent but have picked up enough Southern words/phrases (e.g. "y'all," "slaw" for coleslaw) to change up my map? Don't have any explanation for why Louisiana comes up so strong though.
posted by radiomayonnaise at 2:33 PM on September 28, 2013


Also, some of questions are poorly phrased for the descriptivists among us. There are things I'm unlikely to say, but I wouldn't call them "unacceptable."
posted by radiomayonnaise at 2:38 PM on September 28, 2013


crapmatic: I think those are the results of an earlier freeform survey. (And I've lived in the Bay Area most of my life and still call it a subway or the metro. )
posted by aspo at 2:44 PM on September 28, 2013


I like the snippy idiosyncrasies of the "no option" choices: "I have no word for such a thing", "I would say nothing of the sort" etc.
posted by rollick at 2:44 PM on September 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


The process of taking the quiz is making me realize how different my vocabulary is now versus when I was growing up. They were "garage sales" when I was a kid, now they're definitely "yard sales."

The short version placed me pretty accurately, in that it picked out the two areas in which I split my childhood and gives me an orange blob pretty near my current location. And I'm kind of glad to see that my years in the Northeast didn't stick, linguistically; that whole area is blue blue blue.
posted by jaguar at 2:54 PM on September 28, 2013


clavdivs, I spoke to my mother last night, in part to tell her that I evidently speak like her hometown of Flint. She mentioned that she had to get going, as she had some clothes in the warshing machine.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:14 PM on September 28, 2013


I grew up in "Da Calumet Region" of the south suburbs of Chicago and NW Indiana. It said Joliet, IL. Close enough.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:20 PM on September 28, 2013


Jaguar, I was the same way. I tried to take the quiz as I would if I was still young. Garage sale vs Yard sale. Lightning bug vs. Firefly. Crawdad vs. crawfish (or crayfish if I'm feeling fancy). And based on that it was accurate. The only real difference in my speech now is the soda/pop divide (which wasn't asked in the short quiz. I'm still trying to get the long form to load). I grew up saying pop, but when I moved to the west coast I found people didn't recognize or grudgingly accepted what I was saying to represent a sugary carbonated beverage. And so over time I switched to soda. I barely even drink the stuff anymore, but when I go back to "pop country" I have to actively codeswitch to say pop over soda.

The other change for me is lawyer. "Laahyer" is what I know instinctively. "Laughyer" (more of an "o" with a bit of "u" sound) is preferred on the coasts. I still want to say "Laah", but I've worked with lawyers enough that the change is taking hold.

Now my aunt who grew up in Oklahoma, lived in Dallas for a while, but has been in SoCal for 20 years that says things like "catsup" and "oleo". I still don't get that...
posted by fishmasta at 3:23 PM on September 28, 2013


I thought 'oleo' was mostly generational. I didn't know anybody born after the Depression still said it.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:39 PM on September 28, 2013


Don't have any explanation for why Louisiana comes up so strong though.

So I'm just speculating here, but there are regional accents in Louisiana that sound startlingly Northeastern — including, just as an extreme example, one that sounds a hell of a lot like the old stereotypical Brooklyn accent. I could see "sorta Southern, sorta New York-ish" coming out pretty close to some of those.

As I understand it, it has to do with New Orleans being (a) this weird cultural enclave as a former French settlement and (b) also a very old seaport. For a long time, it was really isolated from the rural inland South, and had much more contact with other big port towns, including the big cities up and down the Atlantic coast.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 3:50 PM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I ran into a weird bug where it gave my #1 city as Abilene, TX, followed by Manchester NH and Lowell MA, but after I clicked the link to download the map my #1 choice switched to Boston, MA. As a Maritimer i guess this makes sense, though I've been living in the Bay Area for a couple of years now and have given up calling it 'pop', then explaining that yes I'm canadian, and now I just call it soda.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:50 PM on September 28, 2013


piannisimo: I grew up saying the devil was beating his wife when the sun shone while it rained, and I am from South Carolina.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:55 PM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


I took the full quiz (bored this evening). There's a dark red blotch for me across the deep South, and another spot in the East Tennessee/North Carolina Appalachians, which is where I'm actually from. Grew up in Tennessee, lived in the DC area for my entire adult life, still sound like a hillbilly.

My top "least similar city" is Minneapolis, which is where I'm moving in four weeks. Hooray!
posted by timetoevolve at 6:54 PM on September 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


Kirth, she's the only one I think. It's not a regional thing that was used when I was growing up. I've never heard anyone else say "oleo" including my grandmother (her mother). I was actually stumped the first time she asked me to grab the $confusingword out of the fridge. And I haven't heard anyone say "catsup" outside of clever Heinz throwback bottles and Mr. Burns.
posted by fishmasta at 8:21 PM on September 28, 2013


I never really had a term for rain that fell while the sun was shining until I saw this thread. Now I think of it as "manic pixie dream girl weather." But I also really like the term "the wolf is giving birth." Maybe I can hybridize the two, and say, "Zooey Deschanel is giving birth" when the weather's like that.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 9:30 PM on September 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


The word I use for a generic carbonated beverage is tonic. I know we tonic people are a tiny regional variation. When I saw that question on the quiz, I knew I would be pegged immediately.
posted by hworth at 10:13 PM on September 28, 2013


If they did this for Canadians, it would need to have some sort of data collection point for how much American TV you've watched. I say bin in some situations; been in others. Traffic circle and roundabout. I had multiple answers to several of the questions for which I was allowed just one answer, sadly.

It figured me for multiple cities in Michigan, Buffalo or a town in Oregon. I guess that makes sense for a Vancouverite.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 12:30 AM on September 29, 2013


"I _______ her lifeless body from the pool" has no "why would you ask me that, officer?" answer, which was very disappointing.

It put me in 3 towns in Texas before it got Albuquerque when I took the short quiz-- I'm guessing because I picked y'all and not you guys, though I use them interchangeably and y'all is really an affectation. I'm doing the long one but it'll take all damn night at this rate.
posted by NoraReed at 12:34 AM on September 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


My god, that long form quiz is the least efficient thing I have ever done.

Raised in Alaska, 7 years in southern California, now back in Alaska for 10+ years...and I get to the end and it turns out that Alaska isn't even on their map. Deep red in the Pacific Northwest and central California, could not have been more blue in the Northeast.

This may explain why my now-husband (from Brooklyn) and I spent the bulk of an early hiking date discussing whether I did or did not pronounce my own last name incorrectly.
posted by charmedimsure at 1:25 AM on September 29, 2013 [2 favorites]


I thought a "Chinese fire drill" was when you switch drivers during a red light. A TON of these feel like they're just fucking with me. A lot of them also are ones I associate with certain economic classes and age groups, and having something to clearly illuminate that is a useful indicator of my own prejudice, so that was useful food for thought.

There was no way to say that you call green onions "some folks call 'em green onions but they're really scallions", which is pretty much how my family refers to those all the time on account of Christmas Dragnet.

Also, ironically, I only know that bear claws are a kind of donut because of Weird Al's "Albuquerque", I've never seen anything called a bear claw in Albuquerque. I hadn't realized that until I got to that question.

Is calling fireflies "peeny wally" a real thing? Where is this said, and is the rest of the dialect that ridiculous? Is it the same place that calls roly polies "tweedle bugs"? Does anyone there produce an entomology podcast because that sounds super amusing?

HOW MANY ANYMORE QUESTIONS DOES THIS THING HAVE

More snarky answers: "What do you call a blow-off course?" "Criminology." "What do you call a drive-through liquor store?" "Illegal."

Upon taking the 140 question one, Albuquerque didn't come up on the list and all of the places were in California, which I guess makes sense-- both my parents are from there.
posted by NoraReed at 1:32 AM on September 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


"What do you call a drive-through liquor store?" "Illegal."

Only since 1998!

(I gave up 50 questions in. Maybe it will be better after everyone else on the internet finishes it?)
posted by PMdixon at 2:09 AM on September 29, 2013


My decade-old laptop won't run this, even slowly, but as a Kansas Citian I can tell you we pretty much get the dialect map that most speakers of CNN English get, a wide swath from the center to the east where we often forget we have regional accents.

The only linguistic quirk that steps over the bounds of ordinary American English I can think of around here is the dropping of 'to be' when describing a task that needs done: i.e. "the car needs washed", "the cat wants fed", "the lawn needs mowed", "the snow needs shoveled", etc. That might be relatively universal, though, I have no idea.
posted by maus at 6:04 AM on September 29, 2013


NoraReed, I was kind of wondering how well New Mexican dialects were represented in the survey. There were some wonderfully telltale Burqueño-isms that I'd have thought would have been really useful here.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 6:41 AM on September 29, 2013


The long form quiz reminds me that I have been wondering for years if other languages aside from US english have a one-word/compound term for rubbernecking.
posted by elizardbits at 1:13 PM on September 29, 2013


if other languages aside from US english have a one-word/compound term for rubbernecking.

Pottekijkers. (Pottenkijkers?)
posted by MartinWisse at 1:56 PM on September 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


I grew up in far-outer-borough NYC and always referred to Manhattan as "the city," mostly to distinguish it from other boroughs. I always assumed this was something everyone did - you refer to the central portion of whatever the nearest big city happens to be as "the city." I never thought of it as specific to New York at all.

Until I met my girlfriend's family in Boston, that is, who apparently told me that this was some obnoxious thing New Yorkers do because we think our city is the One True City, or something. And I was like "what!? No! It's not that at all. You don't call downtown Boston 'the city?'" Which, they don't. They call it "town." Which I find hilariously quaint.
posted by breakin' the law at 1:57 PM on September 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


San Franciscans and people in the general SF Bay Area call San Francisco "the City," too. (And there's definitely a capital C.) I was surprised that SF wasn't a choice for that question. In my mind, "the City" is always either San Francisco, New York City, or London's financial district.

Growing up outside Chicago, going into the city was always "going downtown" for my family, no matter what part of the city we were headed to. Which is probably why I've always liked Petula Clark's Downtown.
posted by jaguar at 5:38 PM on September 29, 2013


Just finished the long test. Boston a red sore. Maine and New Hampshire a deep orange. Vermont, eastern New York, down to north Jersey, yellow (strongest around New York City). Light green in Fairfax County, coastal California, and the southern tip of Florida. Louisiana may as well be underwater.

Plymouth, Boston, Lowell, Worcester. Outside of Massachusetts: Manchester, NH.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:39 PM on September 29, 2013


Count me as another South Carolinian familiar with "the devil is beating his wife".

I didn't realize it was a limited regionalism until I was in college and one of the student papers had an op-ed on how Twitter was doomed to obscurity or pointlessness - this was around 2007 - and the randomly picked example was a tweet that just said "The devil is beating his wife". The op-ed author complained, "Without context, how could we ever possibly know what this might have meant?"
posted by 23 at 7:37 PM on September 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


palmcorder_yanja, I did notice a "want a coke?" question, which made me think of those videos and laugh.
posted by NoraReed at 8:58 PM on September 29, 2013


Born to parents raised in rural Massachusetts, descended from rural CT / NY / Irish ancestors, and have spent almost my entire life in the DC metro area. Most similar cities:

1. Buffalo NY 54.9
2 Syracuse NY 53.9
3 Rochester NY 53.4
4 Boston MA 52.1
5 Hartford CT 52.1

One thing that struck me about this is is how infirm the default seems for some of these terms for me - e.g. "jimmies" vs. "sprinkles"; "roly poly" vs. "potato bug". Both terms are in my mind, somewhere, when I encounter these things, but only one typically is said.

Also that "mudbug" is a perfect name for the crayfish.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:04 PM on September 29, 2013


The long (I mean l - o - n - g)test nailed it for me. Syracuse, where I was born.
posted by Steakfrites at 7:57 AM on September 30, 2013


Still struggling through the first part of the longform test after having to abandon my first attempt on my work computer, and FYI: "median" is now an option on the "grass strip" question.

Could the survey maker be Metafilter's own?!
posted by audacity at 4:39 PM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


"median" is now an option on the "grass strip" question

That's a strangely powerful relief. Somehow, halfway across the world, the guy sitting kitty-corner to me in our junior high office is from Ann Arbor, I'm from Kalamazoo. We were talking about how odd it was that, with all of those options, they didn't have the one word that was correct.

/steamed hams, which is a regional name, distinctive to my very small neighborhood.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:15 PM on September 30, 2013


That's part of what threw me off the first time around-- I thought "island" was closest but knew I called it something else.
posted by NoraReed at 5:54 PM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's been three days, and I still can't bring the full version up. Has it been unaccessable for anyone else?
posted by Curious Artificer at 7:41 PM on September 30, 2013


It's been up and down for me. I was grabbing the link to send to my parents to see how much my accent matches up with theirs and it's frequently down.
posted by NoraReed at 10:07 PM on September 30, 2013


I finally completed the 140 question version.

Darkest is the SF/Bay Area, with maximum dissimilarity in Texas and the South.

I was interested that the best similarity (55.2) was Oakland, where I've never lived. Followed by SF, Santa Rosa, Sunnyvale, and Vallejo, none of which I've lived in.

I grew up all over the place and I guess my map shows it.
posted by caphector at 4:58 PM on October 2, 2013


Stephen King's Dr. Sleep uses the phrase "the devil is beating his wife".
posted by Obscure Reference at 2:35 PM on October 3, 2013


My dad took the short quiz and his results were all in Utah. I don't really trust the short quiz-- he's Californian by birth, lived in NM for 20+ years with a few years in Washington for college.
posted by NoraReed at 4:59 PM on October 3, 2013


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