Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Pop vs. Soda, and Other Things

Joshua Katz uses Bert Vaux's regional dialect survey to make maps of where people say pop and where they say soda, along with a number of other different pronunciations and word choices.  Here's one of my favorites:

77. What do you call the activity of driving around in circles in a car?
     a. doing donuts (80.71%)
     b. doing cookies (1.74%)
     c. whipping shitties (1.43%)
     d. other (16.12%)
     (10011 respondents)
All Results

Choice a: doing donuts

Choice b: doing cookies

Choice c: whipping shitties

Choice d: other
 



Whipping shitties?  Those crazy folks in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Another term I'd never heard of until Monday was referring to rain while the sun is shining as "The devil's beating his wife."  Apparently it's a southern thing.  The dinner/supper deal was all mixed up around here.  My family called the noon meal lunch and the evening meal supper.  A lot of farmers used dinner and supper, while a lot of the town folks used lunch and dinner.  I'd like to see a map with "couch, sofa, or may grandma's word, Davenport.  It didn't make this study, though.  I also didn't see a question about how you pronounce "wash" (which for me rhymes with Porsche).

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