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US dialect quiz can predict where you are from with surprising accuracy

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Nailed it. Got the exact city I live in, Akron OH, but also identified Scottsdale AZ on the other side of the country as a possible location. Pretty impressive.

I guess the potato bug/roly poly/pill bug was the giveaway. There's a notoriously local term around here for the grass between the sidewalk and the road, "Devil Strip." You could pinpoint where I'm from within a half hour drive based on that alone. I thought that question would have me dead to rights but Devil Strip wasn't even an option.
 
The Iron yuppie said:
Definitely accurate. I feel it cheated a bit when it asks about drive though liquor stores when those simply don't exist in many states.

http://nyti.ms/1d1XAaN
Click to expand...

The quiz got hung up on this for me. I don't know if we had them where I'm *FROM* because I moved away at 18. We have them where I *LIVE* but I don't call them anything special, they're just a liquor store. So it got it all wrong for me. It said I'm either from Philly, or Glendale / Scottsdale, AZ. I'm from upstate New York and I live in Georgia.

It got hung up on the pronunciation of pajamas for my wife. It thinks she's from Lincoln or Omaha, NE for having the second syllable rhyme with palm. It also seems to not be able to cope with not having a name for the night before Halloween. She's from Seattle. It also gave her different questions than me.

It's weird because as you move around you pick up various expressions from other places, and as such nothing you give it is going to be accurate unless you're a sad townie.
 
I got Denver/Aurora and then St. Louis.


I spent most of my early language years in NORTH DAKOTA.
Then I was in Germany for a while followed by the middle of Missouri in Warrensburg.

I recently moved to Aurora, and I have a completely different accent than the people around me. I think it's drawing on IP. :-/
 
Bubble Metropolis said:
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Birmingham is the closest to me, but still 250 miles away. Answering "sneakers" is the reason it thinks I live in either NYC or Providence, but I have no idea what else I would call them. From Memphis, btw.
Click to expand...

Answering "Sneakers" made it think I'm from Florida.
 
How can you pronounce cot and caught the same WTF.

Anyway apparently as a Brit i'd fit most in NYC, my favourite US city so i guess it worked.
 
http://nyti.ms/JTrzHo

Pretty close. It puts me in either Michigan, Wisconsin or Western NY (Rochester area). I actually was born in NW Ohio and grew up in Northern Indiana. So it's kind of close.

I may have skewed the results since I've taken up the habit of calling it "Soda" when I pretty much called it "Pop" as a kid. When I re-take it, it still puts in in roughly the same area, but where I grew up is a much darker red: http://nyti.ms/1d26WTZ
 
It nailed it and it was the last question that did it too. Everyone in Buffalo calls soda "pop". I get laughed at everywhere I go on vacation too because I call soda, "pop".

Whenever I'm in a restaurant not in Buffalo:

Me: What kind of pop do you have?
Waitress: hehe, pop.
 
Drake said:
It nailed it and it was the last question that did it too. Everyone in Buffalo calls soda "pop". I get laughed at everywhere I go on vacation too because I call soda, "pop".

Whenever I'm in a restaurant not in Buffalo:

Me: What kind of pop do you have?
Waitress: hehe, pop.
Click to expand...

Eh, I live in Ohio and have been ribbed for calling it soda. Pop is more common than you think, I think.
 
Damn, it put me in Reno, Nevada and Oceanside, California but the third was right in the Twin Cities, MN, which is pretty much dead on.

Apparently Drinking fountain is a midwest thing, lol.
 
Madison, St. Louis, and Rochester were my three. Rochester I think for the sneakers thing. I'm from none of the above, although my area of Michigan was toward the most similar side. Oddly enough I also was high red for most of the deep south. Probably because I decided at an early age that "y'all" was better as a second person plural than just saying"you."
 
I can't get a link(on my iPhone so I guess it won't work), but I'm from michigan, and I got Spokane Washington as most likely so I dunno, though to be fair michigan was reddish


Also where do these drive thru liquor stores exist?


EDIT: took it again, and it got within 20 miles lol, and all 3 were really close to where I'm from
fqvkAy6.jpg
 
Boogie9IGN said:
San Jose, Fremont, and Corona...I live in SJ so pretty damn spot on hahah

Drive-thru liquor stores exist? WTF
Click to expand...

We used to, or maybe still do, have beer runs in Texas where it's essentially a drive thru corner store most commonly used to buy beer. I don't think that's referring to the same thing though?
 
My entire map was red except for the great lakes region and Louisiana, this actually makes sense because I have lived in many places and picked up different words for things over time. I have however never lived in the great lakes or Louisiana.
 
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Heavily west coast. Not from California though (Oregon). I know some things I say are a bit different from those around me. I say soda instead instead of pop, ahnt instead of ant, and I use both caramel and carmel (when everyone says carmel).

Apparently the ahnt thing came from my mother deciding that sounded more sophisticated so she used it with me. Now I can't stop!
 
InsanerBrainer said:
I keep hearing the same sound.

The thief was caught
The thief was cot
I slept on the cot
I slept on the caught

It's all the same to me.
Click to expand...

It's very subtle to me personally but it's there. Even saying it aloud I'm not sure there is much difference audibly but I can tell I'm saying the words differently. I can feel my mouth sort of curl around the 'ught' into a W. Almost like the difference between pom and palm.
 
cyclonekruse said:
For me as well. However, in some places (like the Northeast, IIRC) "cot" is pronounced with to rhyme with "hot" or "got" while "caught" uses the same vowel as "law."

Here's the "o" in "cot."
And here's the vowel in "caught."

Fake edit: Found a clearer example:
Click to expand...

Some dialects just don't have the vowel sound (in any word) that is in "caught" in other dialects. So it would be difficult to describe the sound to people who don't even have the sound!

It's not in my dialect, but I've studied American dialects.
 
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