Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other • Hacker News Board

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#21

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:03 PM UTC

loganfrederick wrote: post #10

http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest... I have never known anyone to use the third phrase.

I'm pretty sure I've at least heard that "devil beating his wife" thing once in my life, somewhere... but in terms of routine, daily life, I know of no term for that phenomenon that's common place. shrug

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#22

Post by baddox » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:04 PM UTC

RK wrote: post #3

What is the difference between "cray-ahn" and "cray-awn"? Note that I pronounce "dawn" = "don". Also, I say crayon as "crown", which either isn't very popular, or they just chose poor colors for the heatmap.

"Dawn" and "don" are the same for me as well, although I have heard that some localities make a distinction between those two vowel sounds with a varying amount of "roundness" of the lips.

A lot of the pronunciation examples they gave made me speculate whether everyone even pronounces those words the same. It would be easier if everyone would just memorize IPA.

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#23

Post by Azulsky » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:04 PM UTC

For #15 the Louisiana term is Poboy, despite the best attempts by Subway to convince us otherwise.

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#24

Post by dbbolton » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:04 PM UTC

Having never heard the phrase before, "the devil is beating his wife" really stood out to me.

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#25

Post by russelluresti » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:04 PM UTC

loganfrederick wrote: post #10

http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest... I have never known anyone to use the third phrase.

From Texas here - I've heard someone use it. Though their version was "God is beating his wife" instead of "the devil". I heard it as a kid, from my neighbor's dad, when my friend and I were outside playing and it started to rain while it was sunny.

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#26

Post by russelluresti » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:05 PM UTC

I am firmly on the side of "y'all".

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#27

Post by mieubrisse » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:05 PM UTC

As a Chicagoan, I've never paid the slighted bit of attention that, apparently, literally everyone around me doesn't say "sear-up" as I do. No clue how that came about, with no family ties to the east coast whatsoever.

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#28

Post by mhartl » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:08 PM UTC

If you look at the concentration of blue in the Bay Area, you can see that they need to add a city to "What is 'the City'?":

http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest...

Hint: It's not San José.

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#29

Post by Zikes » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:08 PM UTC

russelluresti wrote: post #26

I am firmly on the side of "y'all".

One of my foreign friends was teasing me about how English doesn't have a word for "a group of people" whereas many other major languages apparently do, and I replied "sure we do, it's y'all".

Re: Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Differently From Each Other

#30

Post by kyubic » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 10:09 PM UTC

Reminds me of a dialect map that was done in Shiny: http://spark.rstudio.com/jkatz/DialectMap/