US Dialect Survey Maps

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SRoper

Puritan Board Graduate
A while ago I found a site that maps the results of the Harvard Dialect Survey. When visiting it again, I found that there was a new link that takes you to an interactive survey that will produce your own dialect heat map that shows how likely it is that someone would answer the survey the same way you do. I got Cleveland, Akron, and Grand Rapids as my cities--I'm from the Cleveland area.

My wife's quiz was less decisive--it put her anywhere in the Midwest from central Ohio through Nebraska (she's was born in central Ohio, but spent much of her youth in Florida).

Best thing I learned from this survey is that on the East Coast they call a drive-through liquor store a "brew-through." Amazing!
 
Two southern cities and Philly -- no surprise there. My family has deep roots in Pennsylvania and I was mostly reared in the south.
 
I thought the site was going to crash figuring me out (I was raised in the West by midwestern parents, but spent most of my adult life in the South), but it finally put me squarely in Denver and Albuquerque... which are the closest large cities to where I live now.
 
Posting a map is a good idea. Here's mine:

SRoper dialect heat map.jpg

I'm really interested in the differences within a region. For example, Brandon's map clearly shows he's from Mississippi and not, say, Alabama. Mine shows a remarkable difference between northern Ohio and southern Ohio. I think in my case the differences were drinking fountain/water fountain, crayfish/crawfish or crawdad, cran/cray-awn or cray-ahn, and tree lawn/no word for this.
 
I got Reno, Santa Rosa and Aurora, apparently the first two because I say crawdad and the last one because I say frontage road
 
My husband and I took the test separately. We're 7 years apart in age and born and raised about 30 miles apart (he, from south of Detroit and me, from Detroit but raised by my maternal side that was from all over southern Wisconsin) came out a little differently. His three main cities were Detroit, Grand Rapids and Toledo, and my three were Detroit, Grand Rapids and Minneapolis/St. Paul. I guess that Wisconsin influence (even spilling over into MN) stays with a person for life. This is interesting. I thought our only main difference was that I pronounce that county and city that are in far southeast MI as "Mun-ROE" and he says, "MON-roe." Not so: there are many more.
 
It was probably unfair of us to take the quiz. I got Cleveland, Fort Wayne, and St. Louis. I have been to two of those, but haven't spent much time there at all. Heidi was Louisville, Boise, and Lincoln, which is strange as she's only been to one of those, and that in passing.
 
Spokane, Salt Lake City, and Modesto. I've lived all over the country, but I was born 200 miles east of Spokane and have settled 120 miles south of Spokane, so it seems fairly accurate.
 
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I come out eastern California, but I'm a Vancouver boy raised in Toronto with very little exposure to the movies???
 
Wow, it got me perfectly. It basically said I was from Orange County, CA. (I wonder if it's just checking my IP address) hrmmm :think:
 
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