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Journal Ethelred Unraed's Journal: Whut kinder English y'all speak? 75

Journal by Ethelred Unraed
What kind of American English do you speak?

My results:

50% General American English
20% Dixie
15% Upper Midwestern
15% Yankee
0% Midwestern

Which, considering I grew up in Virginia, was born to an Ohioan and Virginian (who in turn was born to a Mississippian and Pennsylvanian), and later lived in Minnesota, sounds about right.

And I want to know what the hell a "cruller" is. Dictionary.com claims it's some kind of doughnut, but I don't believe them. Clearly a conspiracy.

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Whut kinder English y'all speak? More

Whut kinder English y'all speak?

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  • Your Linguistic Profile:

    55% General American English
    30% Yankee
    15% Dixie
    0% Midwestern
    0% Upper Midwestern

    Not that I have any clue what this means...

  • 70% General American English
    15% Yankee
    10% Dixie
    5% Upper Midwestern
    0% Midwestern

    I'm on the west coast. Did the Upper Midwestern questions cover Wisconsin and Minnesotan accents as well?
  • it's a doughnut shaped like a stick rather than a ring, usually made of dough that's been twisted out rather than pressed into a ring. Tastes the same. Usually plain or chocolate or some other heavy dough, not the nice, light, fluffy kind. Fast track to indigestion, really. For those who don't want a bear claw (which is a kind of doughnut that's kinda lopsided) but still want something excessive yet boring.

    oddly enough, i don't miss doughnuts. Not even a little.
    • but still want something excessive yet boring.

      such is the way of many donuts. excessive yet boring... and well... excessively boring? boringly excessive?

      i was in a krispy kreme once, my friend marc wanted to get some donuts (wow, there's a stretch). i don't much care for them. anyway -- i went in with him... and well the people who frequent said establishment scared the ever loving bejezus out of me. they were practically crawling on top of each other in line because they just had to have their donuts! S
      • Ick. I hate the donuts people are ususally refering to when they say "Krispy Kreme"- that is, fluffy and glazed. The only kind of donuts that I can stand (and actually like) are really dense cake donuts that come in packs of 6 or 12 at the gas station. The ones with cinnamon sugar I like especially. "Gourmet" donuts = Yuck.
    • Over here at our Tim Horton's a cruller/crueller is shaped in a ring, normally covered with sugar and is a lighter/fluffier dough. Still fried, it doesn't have a cylinder type shape, but almost subsection pieces that are nice for dipping into a hot chocolate. Bah here's a google image:here [dobhran.com]. It used to be my favourite doughnut until I had my first fresh krispy kreme.
    • I see that you are a part of the infernal crueller conspiracy, trying to insinuate that there really is such a word.

      I am shocked and disappointed that you have been sucked into its nefarious vortex.

      Cheers,

      Ethelred

  • 60% General American English
    30% Yankee
    10% Upper Midwestern
    0% Dixie
    0% Midwestern

    Guess that comes from the 5 years in California mostly.

  • 50% General American English

    30% Yankee
    20% Dixie
    0% Midwestern
    0% Upper Midwestern

    The caveat, of course, is that many of the questions are missing a "none of the above" answer. Covering a house in toilet paper? Not something I've ever heard of. Quite how this is deemed a common enough occurrence to warrant its own specific term is beyond me. I call my beverages "drinks", I call an easy class "easy", I push my groceries around in a shopping trolley, and were I to work out, I'd be wearing trainers. I'm n

    • Yeah, none of the above would have been a good choice for many of them.

      I call an easy class "easy"

      Up here we call it a "Mickey Mouse".

      But if you've never TP'd a car or a house, you probably missed out on the whole "streaking" thing too ...

      Biggest missing option: prefixing each term with "fuckin' ", like:

      • "fuckin' shopping cart" - for the carts with one wheel that insists on not turning/going all over the place/off to one side
      • "fuckin' drink" - what you just spilled all over your keyboard and lap
      • "fucki

      • Your Linguistic Profile:

        50% General American English
        35% Yankee
        15% Dixie
        0% Midwestern
        0% Upper Midwestern

        Where I grew up, we called it "cabbage night". Not sure why. It seems to be a very localized thing, however, because other areas in the same region called it "mischief night".

        BTW, I grew up in the Northern NJ suburbs of NYC. For example, however, the people I know from the Long Island suburbs of NYC (maybe 40 miles away) don't have a clue what cabbage night is.

        • We called it "mat night" because that's the night that your doormats disappear, get swapped with other people's mats, etc. Of course, since its' inception, people have stopped leaving welcome mats outside, and the pranks have gone on to more destructive things, like tire slashing, egging houses, etc.

    • Covering a house in toilet paper? Not something I've ever heard of. Quite how this is deemed a common enough occurrence to warrant its own specific term is beyond me. I call my beverages "drinks", I call an easy class "easy", I push my groceries around in a shopping trolley, and were I to work out, I'd be wearing trainers. I'm not quite sure in which language the word "caramel" has two syllables, but it's certainly not english! How would you pronounce it with only two? Like "Carmel", perhaps? Who knows?

      TP

      • A shopping trolley! How silly. Trollies are light rail vehicles which travel on tracks embedded in city streets. They generally have an external power source such as an overhead electrical wire or an underground cable.

        IMHO, those are trams or streetcars. Trolleys are also powered by an overhead electrical wire, but they have bus-like wheels and go on normal roads.
        • IMHO, those are trams or streetcars.

          Streetcars I'll buy. Trams and trolleys have nothing to do with each other. Trams are multicar vehicles that carry you from the parking area to the entrance at major amusement parks like Disney World.

      • "The kids will generally go to the store and buy several dozen rolls of toilet paper, then throw them like streamers over the house and any trees in the yard."

        Grocery store clerk: Toilet paper... toilet paper... toilet paper... toilet paper... toilet paper... toilet paper... so, what are you kids up to tonight?

    • 35% General American English

      20% Dixie

      20% Yankee

      15% Upper Midwestern

      5% Midwestern

      Not too different from what I expect, given that my native tongue is a dialect the writer doubtless didn't know or didn't care to include, and I've travelled a lot.

      I agree with you there are many where none of the choices given is remotely satisfactory.

      Cellar and basement are both correct, as they both refer to an underground level. If the space is essentially part of the living quarters (i.e. a basement ap

      • The night before Halloween I might call All Hallows Eve, or Sawan

        Interesting spelling. It's more commonly spelled "Samhain". It's also on the same night as Halloween, not the night before. In fact, the night before Halloween has no special significance to any community that I'm aware of, so why it would have a name other than "October 30th" is a little mystifying.

        I can't tell you how I pronounce 'route' until you tell me the context, because it's actually two words. There's both a verb and a noun with t

      • The night before Halloween I might call All Hallows Eve, or Sawan, or simply Halloween.

        I flew over this, and got confused -- do you mean you call the day before Halloween "All Hallows Eve"?

        "Halloween" itself being "All Hallows Eve". November 1st is All Saints Day, also called "All Hallows" in the more archaic term.

        As for root/rowt, I say "root" for the noun and "rowt" for the verb. But we covered that in detail [slashdot.org] already, as you correctly remembered. ;-)

        Cheers,

        Ethelred

        • Yes, I was obviously confused when I wrote that. The night before halloween is nothing at all to the best of my knowledge, I incorrectly assumed an apparently completely wrong parsing of that question. I also reversed the pronunciations of noun and verb routes. I went to sleep right after I posted that for about 12 hours - obviously I needed it. Sorry for any confusion.

          • Yes, I was obviously confused when I wrote that.

            Bah! Don't let it happen again! *whap*

            Now write "I will not be confused in Ethelred's journal" four trillion times, in Sanskrit, with a wet noodle.

            Or just forget about the whole thing. As a sign of my magnanimity, you may choose freely.

            Cheers,

            Ethelred

  • 45 yankee, 35 general, and who cares about the rest.

    Although my Sis now has inlaws named Dixie... and her husband has a shotgun and deer horns (growing out of his head, not mounted on the wall)
    • 55% general, 45% yankee, nothing for the rest. I think having cruller in my vocab accounts for 5% of that.
      • I think having cruller in my vocab accounts for 5% of that.

        Ditto. That right there points at the weakness of the test. Also the fact that they didn't have "Gate Night" as an option for the night before Halloween (very suburban NY, Rockland county). Though its a nice start to geographically locate pockets of word usage, its way too shallow.

        Speaking of cruellers, I'm always reminded of watching "Cherry 2000" on USA Nightflights (or was it "Up all night" with Gilbert Godfried? Or that Chick? [rhondashear.com]) where they h
    • Yours is the first I've seen with more regionalisms than general american. Wow. Impressive...
      • Hardly. This isn't a very accurate test by anymeans.

        Depending upon my mood, my actual mode of talking can be so slang riddled as to defy any category; which isn't a very effective way of communicating!!!

  • 50% General American English
    25% Dixie
    20% Yankee
    5% Upper Midwestern
    0% Midwestern

  • "I've been everywhere, man"
    Grew up on the left coast, spent a little time in the midwest, spent most of the last 15 years around DC.
    Watch a lot of BBC, and manage to use a lot of British English, as well. Just goes to show what an amusing, but inconclusive, exercise this sort of thing can be.

    Your Linguistic Profile:
    45% General American English
    30% Yankee
    10% Dixie
    10% Upper Midwestern
    5% Midwestern
  • 75% General American English
    15% Yankee
    10% Upper Midwestern
    0% Dixie
    0% Midwestern

    So, my parents are from the midwest and upper midwest. I spent ten years in Southern California, and then my family moved to the northeast.

    Hard to categorize...

  • 55% General American English
    30% Yankee
    15% Dixie
    0% Midwestern
    0% Upper Midwestern

  • You didn't see Wayne's World?


    rent it immediately.



    MY Linguistic Profile:

    60% General American English
    20% Dixie
    15% Yankee
    5% Upper Midwestern
    0% Midwestern


    WTF? I'm from Texas?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Not any more. I'm 40% normal.
        By the way, on the sex question, they didn't only mean with someone else, did they? :)
        More seriously, gaining 150 pounds would be just as fatal as the truck.

    • em>And I am so glad to hear that somewhere in the US "route" isn't pronounced "rowt". *cackle* Not that it makes it any easier when I ask one of my coworkers about a router and slip into British English when doing so.

      What do you think historians call running y'all off? Routing the British! With plenty of ow, of course. No wonder you notice it :)

      Anyway, rooters don't connect networks, they roll around in the slop! We do say root when referring to roads named that way, but actual directions to be follo

  • Your Linguistic Profile:
    75% General American English
    10% Upper Midwestern
    10% Yankee
    5% Midwestern
    0% Dixie
    Born to an Iowan (Davenport/Quad Cities) and a New Yorker (Jamaica). They met in Boston, Mass and moved to New Jersey. My brother was born in San Antonio and raised in West Lafayette, IN before moving to Northeast, Ohio where I was born. I now live in greater metropolitan Maryland. I'd prefer to stop moving but, eh.

  • 45% General American English

    30% Yankee
    15% Dixie
    5% Midwestern
    5% Upper Midwestern

    Several of these need a N/A response, but 'cos I hadder pick summit, I went with the least stupid answer.

    1. The level of a building that is underground is called the: Depends what it is used for? Basement maybe, sub-level, car park...

    4. The act of covering a house or area in front of a house with toilet paper is called... Stupid?

    5. You call sweetened, carbonated beverages: Soft Drink

    6. You drink from: A glass

    10. What

  • 65% General American English
    20% Yankee
    15% Upper Midwestern
    0% Dixie
    0% Midwestern

    Somewhat odd, seeing as I've lived my whole life in the upper portion of the midwest, but it looked like there were a bunch of questions that were one category or general American English, so a 100% in anything but the general category might be impossible. I'm surprised they didn't add something like, "When you're uncomfortable do you, (a) Squirm, (b) rootch, (c) wriggle." As rootch isn't a word I'd even heard of until I dat

    • "When you're uncomfortable do you, (a) Squirm, (b) rootch, (c) wriggle."


      There's no r in wiggle. :)
      Just kidding. That's what we say down here. Wiggle. Wiggle room. Getting wiggly during church is a no-no, let me tell you. :)
      • Wriggle [reference.com] and wiggle [reference.com] are both seperate words with slightly different meaning, though they describe a similar motion. We use wiggle up here in MN too, probably more often in fact. It's just a less extreme motion than wriggling.
  • Your Linguistic Profile:
    75% General American English
    20% Upper Midwestern
    5% Midwestern
    0% Dixie
    0% Yankee

    Cruller is a made-up word.

  • 75% General American English
    20% Yankee
    5% Upper Midwestern
    0% Dixie
    0% Midwestern

    This is a little odd, considering that I was born and raised in the midwest and now live in Texas. Apparently, my four years in Boston affected me more than the other 43 years combined. :-) I have picked up some southern speech patterns, and when I'm talking to someone with a Southern accent I tend to speak in the same way, but I have not picked up the word usages (like "coke" for carbonated beverage). And I never

  • Your Linguistic Profile: 60% General American English 30% Yankee 10% Dixie 0% Midwestern 0% Upper Midwestern
  • I expected more little dixie. ;)

    Your Linguistic Profile:

    • 70% General American English
    • 25% Dixie
    • 5% Yankee
    • 0% Midwestern
    • 0% Upper Midwestern

  • 65% General American English
    20% Yankee
    10% Dixie
    5% Upper Midwestern
    0% Midwestern
    Don't get it. Lots of missing options for us Canadians up here. Oh well...
  • 60% General American English
    25% Dixie
    5% Midwestern
    5% Upper Midwestern
    5% Yankee

    I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and spent a couple of years in Portland, Oregon. Hardly anyone can place my accent, as it's very flat from watching PBS as a kid. :) Although it does come out if I say "y'all," or my favorite, "y'all're." And yes, I've used that term at work, including when talking to clients on the phone. (Y'all stop laughing.)

    I've seen people say "y'all" when speaking to one person. Maybe that's the way it's done w
    • I've seen people say "y'all" when speaking to one person. Maybe that's the way it's done where they came from, but here in Texas, "y'all" is plural. You all.

      You have, I'm sure, heard the ancient joke:

      Q: What's the plural of "y'all"?
      A: "All y'all". As in, "fuck all y'all!"

      We call it "wrapping a house" when someone puts toilet paper in trees.

      I used to as well (or actually we just said "trashing a house"), but then after moving to Minnesota, TPing became the word for it. I still say "Coke" for every

  • 60% General American English

    40% Dixie

    Dats right ya'll.

    Comen git yer viddles, fore I reckon dey dun get colt on ya.

    SOUF SIDE REPRASENT (n shit)

  • 70% General American English
    10% Upper Midwestern
    10% Yankee
    5% Dixie
    5% Midwestern

    I wondered how a native son of Picksburgh would show up on this test. Of course, to test for Pittsburghese English, all they'd have to ask is "rubber band or gumband?"

  • 60% General American English
    25% Upper Midwestern
    10% Yankee
    5% Midwestern
    0% Dixie

    I was born and raised in Seattle but moved to Detroit at age 12. Some of my friends still say I have a west coast Seattle accent. I say they sound very nasal when they talk. The words used aren't all that different either. The soda thing has perplexed me for years. Who the hell says soda?

  • heh (Score:2)

    by tuxette ( 731067 ) *
    Grew up in Michigan (Detroit area), studied at Cornell for my BA, lived in Arlington, VA before I moved to Norway...

    65% General American English
    15% Yankee
    10% Upper Midwestern
    5% Dixie
    5% Midwestern
  • 4. The act of covering a house or area in front of a house with toilet paper is called...

    It's called "covering the area in front of a house with toilet paper". I guess "toilet papering" gets the gist of it...

    10. What do you call an easy class?

    I call it a bird course.^-^

    6. The second syllable in pajamas sounds like:

    I have no idea. I've typed the word a few times, but I don't think I've ever heard it spoken or said it myself.

    Your Linguistic Profile:
    50% General American English
    35% Yankee
  • But here it is anyway:

    Your Linguistic Profile:
    75% General American English
    10% Dixie
    10% Upper Midwestern
    5% Midwestern
    0% Yankee
  • 80% General American English
    10% Yankee
    5% Dixie
    0% Midwestern
    0% Upper Midwestern

    I was born in D.C., grew up in Hawai'i, and have lived south of the Manson-Nixon Line for well over a decade. Everybody down here thinks I'm from somewhere "up north," as I clearly enunciate when I speak, thus setting me apart from the teeming masses around here. I don't pick up accents no matter where I live. Even after all my years in Hawai'i, I barely picked up any trace of the local pidgin, which is rather distinctive.

    I do s
    • You're the only one here who's as "general American" as I am:

      80% General American English
      10% Upper Midwestern
      10% Yankee
      0% Dixie
      0% Midwestern

      My parents, on the other hand, are a fair bit more regionalized than I am (IA and NE), as is my next-younger sister.
      I don't know how I ended up so neutral. I have tried to keep from obtaining any form of Midwest drawl - the Wisconsin and Minnesota accents drive me up the wall (disclaimer: I live in a suburb of Minneapolis).

      But I have no Dixie. I can't say "y'all"
  • Your Linguistic Profile:
    60% General American English
    20% Dixie
    10% Upper Midwestern
    5% Midwestern
    5% Yankee

    Interesting. Daddy was a cracker (though he'd smack me to hear me say it), and I lived my first 4 years in Florida, so that partly explains the dixie. I think the y'all is probably the rest of it--but that comes from any rural area, I didn't pick it up myself until I spent 12 years in central Illinois...hardly Dixie.

    As for the Upper/Midwestern, given that I've spent my whole life in St. Louis, Peor

  • As spoken by Englishmen and -women. In England, no less.
  • I speak Californian, of course. What's Californian? That's English spoken that has a hint of Spanish pronunciation - rolled r's and double l sounding like a y. The only reason I get anything else is my evil step-mother came from outside Little Rock, Arkansas. So, while y'all doesn't roll off my tongue, I can drawl as well as any southerner.

    70% General American English
    15% Yankee
    10% Dixie
    5% Upper Midwestern
    0% Midwestern

  • Mine (Score:2)

    by ces ( 119879 )
    Your Linguistic Profile:
    80% General American English
    15% Upper Midwestern
    5% Dixie
    0% Midwestern
    0% Yankee

    Spent my whole life in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. My Father is from Wisconsin. Not sure where the Dixie comes from, though I did pick up using "Coke" to mean any type of soft drink.
  • Your Linguistic Profile:
    55% General American English
    25% Yankee
    20% Dixie
    0% Midwestern
    0% Upper Midwestern
  • 65% general american english
    15% dixie
    15% yankee
    5% upper midwestern
    0% midwestern

    Funny, you'd think somebody who lived in Milwaukee for 25 of his 30 years would score higher in the upper midwestern bracket...

    Biggest missing question: Do you frequently ask questions phrased as statements followed by "eh?". Oh and they were missing the option for "bubbler" instead of water fountain.
  • I call an easy course a "bird course"; doesn't everyone?

    I get my crullers at Tim Horton's.
    • I am shocked and dismayed that you, fair lady, are a part of this infernal cruller conspiracy. There is no such word, I say. All an invention.

      Cheers,

      Ethelred

      • "Cruller" even comes from the same root word as "curly," by a quaint linguistic process known as metathesis, not to be confused with metastasis, which is something else entirely. You could say that it's basically the same word as "curler," even.

        (In linguistic terms, metastasis would be something like what the famous James Nicoll described when he said, " We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new voc
        • Sorry to disappoint.

          Fie! Away with your pro-cruller propaganda! I refuse to believe any evidence whatsoever short of a Tim Horton's advert.

          Oh. Shit. [timhortons.com]

          Well, I still deny it. If the word was invented north of the Mason-Dixon Line, I deny its existence.

          What do you folks call those things that run along the eaves of your house and collect all the rain water, dead leaves, squirrel droppings, maple keys, and other kipple, and funnel them to strategically-placed downspouts?

          Why, we call them "things that

          • Didn't your mother ever tell you that "gutters" are those things that run along the sides of the street and catch all the rain water, dead leaves and all that other junk?! The things that run under the eaves of the house are called (perforce) "eavestroughs." Jeez... ;)

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