My Dialect - The Official Report

The results of the dialect quiz I took

For those of you who wish to validate that you actually live where you think you live, here's the quiz link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

The main reason "Philadelphia" is showing up on my results page is because of the "what do you call a sandwich in a hot dog bun" question. 

I put down "hoagie."
Even though of course it's a sub.

Everybody knows it's a sub. But I felt a wave of Pennsylvania hoagie nostalgia when I saw the question and thus clicked on hoagie. In my defense, we had hoagie sales in my elementary school that paid for field trips. Maybe I liked field trips. I felt an obligation to my heritage to go with hoagie. And thus the Philadelphia.

I also have a sense for why the Yonkers, which is probably code for "the Bronx." It's because my pop comes from the Bronx and he was a very prolific teacher of words to young me. 

That's the thing with this quiz... many of the words it asks about are words to describe very specific things that might come up like once a decade. Words that you probably learn as a kid and then rarely if ever use in real life. Like the names of insects that live in the backyard, for example. (No spoilers here, you'll have to take the quiz and figure out they're obviously called lightning bugs yourself.)

Interesting sidebar: A Swedish friend decided to take the quiz and quickly abandoned the effort. Although her English is top-notch, she had no idea what most of the words were. Then again, one time I gave some of my gal pals a "Galentines Day" card on February 14, and this same Swedish friend was completely baffled. 

So maybe this sidebar isn't really all that interesting after all. Except to realize that non-native speakers are likely not going to know words like "gal" or the words for little caterpillar-ish critters that curl up when you dig them out of your lawn or what you call liqueur stores with a drive through. Which basically means this whole quiz is one big question mark for them.

In the quiz, there are also some pronunciation questions. Let me tell you something vital: Crayon has two brutally distinct syllables. Also, Mary, merry and marry are all different f*ing words. Who are you people who have created a situation where either of these full-on facts has become a question?

You might be able to suspect why the Newark/Paterson probably makes sense, aside from my husband being from Jersey and all.