Hi Guys,
Well, do you drink soda, pop, or coke? How you answer that question provides a clue of your geographic upbringing within the USA. How do you say Mary, Merry, and Marry? This question further refines the location estimate.
Harvard and other universities have studied linguistic pecularities extensively and have developed a long list of candidate test questions. These have been assembled into a series that has a high likelihood of pinpointing where you spent your formative years.
They are fun to take. Here is a Link to one such test:
http://www.youthink.com/quiz.cfm?obj_id=9827This is not the most sophisticated of this type of test, but it is one that demands little time yet seems fairly accurate. Even after many years, when visiting the ocean, I don't go to the beach; I go to the shore. Given all our internal location displacements, these clues must becoming less reliable. However, they still seem to work.
I hope you take the test and enjoy doing so.
Best Regards.
Comments
"Which American accent do you have?
Northern
You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for."
Where I never lived.
I've lived much of my life in two regions of the US, several years in a third, and a few years in a fourth. The quiz didn't come up with any of them for me.
It seems to think that on the whole, I would rather be from Philadelphia. I've spent a total of four hours my whole life there (giving a business presentation). But the quiz was fun nevertheless.
Born and reared in southern Ohio and long transplanted to Boston, I was pleased when Larry Bird arrived with the Celtics and spoke without an accent
Regards,
Ted
After you pahked yuh cahr in Hahvuhd Yahd, near the Squayah, celebrated no doubt, with a frappe or tawnic - unless you hit the packie first for some beeyahs - then had a sub, steemahs or pizzer!