Silly/Interesting Dialect Variations
From Bravo comes a link to this nifty image that was reposted as The Cellar’s Image of the Day: Word usage maps. There’s a link to the original source in the comments, with that original source being a Harvard site: Dialect survey results. (Quick digression, apropos the headmaster at my daughter’s school’s habit of telling everyone he meets about his time at a certain Ivy League location: Q: How can you tell when someone’s been to Harvard? A: They tell you.)
Anyway, it’s very much worth some poking around. If you do so, you’ll learn many fascinating facts about your fellow Americans. For example, there’s a cluster of people in and around Rhode Island who call a drink made with milk and ice cream a “cabinet”. And nearly 11% of survey respondents call the gooey stuff that collects in the corners of your eyes an eye booger. Who knew?
October 11th, 2003 at 1:36 pm
I feel vindicated against all of the people who ever made fun of my for using the term “mute point” as a kid … 2.96% of the country uses that expression and another 1.28% think it’s just as valid as calling it a “moot point”
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/staticmaps/q_115.html