12.28.2013

A very cool thing

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer all the questions below to see your personal dialect map.

Alas, it may require a subscription to do this but at the link above is a fascinating quiz about word pronounciation that attempts to devine where you were born. It failed in my case, but instead picked three possibilities (Madison, WI, and Rockford and Aurora, IL)—places I've never lived but have visited and which lie between two places I did do most of my growing up in Illinois and Minnesota. And also includes within its "likely" range every place I have lived with only one exception of any consequence: Atlanta. So I'd call that a success. All in all I'd call it a pretty good performance and an excellent demonstration of that, you know, data stuff.

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