Asymmetrical Information

Tried it. They were only off by about a thousand miles.

I've taken that, with the same result, and am just astonished by how few vowels all you people in the rest of the country seem to get along with. All of the queried vowel sounds sound different to me.

Well it pegged me as being from the Northeast although I was born and have lived below the Mason-Dixon all of my life.

Of course it may be that the high school that I attended required 2 years of speech class. Anyone remember those? Damn that was a long time ago!

Tolbert,

That's odd. It placed me as having a Southern accent, although I live in New York and grew up in Philadelphia (although I did go to college in VA)

The West? I sometimes confuse people as to whether I have a Massachusetts accent or a Maine accent, but nobody's ever told me I sound like I come from the West.

Symmetry:

I fudged on Mary/merry/marry. I think Mary/marry are the same and merry is different. That wasn't an option, so I said all three are different and I got Boston, which is absurd. Then I said they are all the same and got the West, with "The Midland" as a runner up. I'll assume that this (British?) quiz designer meant the Midwest, which means I propably speak perfect General American.

It got me dead on as 'Inland North' [Split 0-18yrs between Chicago and Minnesota]. I thought everything had a different sound with the exception of the three Marys, which all sound identical to me.

Philadelphia accent here. They are right about most people not being able to identify it and saying "You talk kind of funny" :)

I was a Philadelphia accent, even though I'm from New Orleans. People often ask me if I'm from Boston, and I've gotten England a couple times (a couple friends asked me if I'd gone to prep school there), but never Philadelphia (actually, the friend who asked me about England is from Philadelphia; take that for what it's worth). My mother claims that it's just a port city accent: clipped, fast, and not terribly place-distinctive.

Yes! Midland all the way!

I can be an announcer, without sounding ridiculous!

AND I PRONOUNCE FINAL R'S! (Why didn't it ask about those?)

One time I had trouble communicating with people who pronounced "Dale" as "Dell".

I got "the west", which is correct. English is confusing enough without all you Eastern types adding special vowel inflections that ain't necessary to get the point across.

I noticed a missing question, though: Does "wash" rhyme with "marsh"?...

"Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech."

It says "Boston" but I've never lived in Lincolnshire. What? It means the American Boston? Absurd.

Inland North here. Grew up in suburban Detroit. As kids, my brothers and I said "soda" instead of "pop" due to our Canadian father. (For more info on Soda vs Pop, including a cool map, see http://www.popvssoda.com/..)

It said I had a 100% 'Northeastern' accent (?Boston? ?Maine?) -- but I have a British accent on an Indian underlay with Australian overtones..

AT: Same here. Mary = marry != merry. It pegged me as "inland", which is close. (Rural Michigan, which is very different from Detroit...)

anony-mous: wash rhymes with warsh in my family, but this may vary too much even within one location to be a useful identifier.

The question about "about" also puzzled me - unless the quizmaker included Canada under "American" accents. Is there anywhere in the USA that "about" is pronounced "ah-boot"?

Well, having been brought up in the south of England and still living here my 'American' accent is supposedly north-eastern.

I have to query how some of the words they suggested can EVER sound the same!

I grew up in Arkansas, and lived there, in Tennessee, and in North Carolina until I was 27. And this quiz says I have a Northeastern accent? Fah.

Admittedly, my Southern is nowhere near as strong as it used to be. But I get asked several times a year here in CT about where I grew up, because they can tell it wasn't here. And this area has almost no accent at all compared to a good thick NJ/NY/Long Island one. Against any of those, I sound like I'm from another planet entirely.

It pegged me, quite correctly, for Boston, although I think my accent is extremely subtle and I definitely pronounce final Rs. But Mary, merry, and marry most definitely all sound distinct:

Mary= mayr ee
marry= rhymes with "Harry"
merry= mehr ee (I mean, c'mon people, "e" and "a" are two different letters).

I got pegged as Midland which is probably pretty close. I grew up in Kentucky, spent 4 years in Chicago, 3 years in Atlanta, and the last 12 in Connecticut.

With due respect,it's "Quelle surprise."

I was born and raised in Texas, went to college in Texas and California, and live and work in the U.S. Northeast, and it pegged me as Inland North. Rather odd.

I was totally pegged at Midland.

In the Army, most thought I had an accent, but they couldn't figure out from where.

RMc--

Around Cincinnati, it is 'pop'. If you ask for a soda, you will get a drink with ice cream in it. The biggest dialect oddity that I am aware of is that we ask "Please?" if we didn't understand what you said and would like for you to repeat it.

I personally don't know of anywhere else in the country where that is common.

"midland north" which is funny -- i never was anywhere near wisconsin growing up, but when i came up here for school from virginia, everyone asked me if i was from canada. now that's how you hurt a southern boy's feelings.

I got Midland North, despite the fact that I've never been anywhere near there except to change planes. I grew up near Boston, and some people think I have a Boston accent although I disagree.

100% right on, Philadelphia accent. "Different" was the answer to nearly all words in the quiz.
So what are the right pronunciations?

Who says "bag" as "bague"? Or "vague" as "vag"?

A ridiculous test. It pegged me as "Inland North," which basically means the Great Lakes region.
I grew up and attended school in Connecticut, never living anywhere else until moving to Long Island nine years ago. My sole contact with the Inland North consists of a handful of brief visits to Chicago and Ohio.

Try this one Jane, You can I grew up in the same building and apparently it pegged me from being from Wisconsin.

Placed me exactly in "Midland"-even the correct section of my State. Yea! Says I can be an announcer!

Midland - no surprise, being from Utah and living in Oregon, both lands of the accent-less.

Accent? We don't have no stinkin' accent.

I was Inland North, which is where I grew up--just outside Syracuse. As I understand it, there is a belt of similar dialect & accent which runs from Western Mass/Conn westwards through Upstate New York, Ohio, and on to lower Wisconsin and lower Minnesota. Canadians, at least those in lower Ontario, also sound similar, but have phrases they use which are a bit different, eh?

Regionalisms crop up, to be sure, with words such as soda, pop, or soda pop. Oil and earl. Wash and warsh. Route and root. One of the more interesting variations in names is hoagie, sub, wedge, or grinder--you can see all of these within a fifty mile radius of NYC.

Markm, I thought they said a-boot in Texas.

I grew up near Boston, and some people think I have a Boston accent although I disagree.

Dahleeng, pahk the cah in the Hahvahd yahd...

What is the deal with Mary, merry, and marry? Only the middle one is different and that wasn't a choice.

Tabbed me as being from Philly, but I don't think I've ever been there except to drive thru.

straight out of midlands! boyyyyyyyeeeee!

I got basically the same result as Jane. Grew up in Westchester until second grade and then Manhattan. Went to Northwestern for college, where I was amazed to see "pop" was standard usage for soda; I always thought it was a silly kiddie word, and I laughed when I saw my first supermarket sign advertising six-packs of pop. Lived in DC for two years after college, then a year and a half in Manhattan, a year in Trenton, six years in Brooklyn and the last three back in my native Westchester.

I think almost all of those word pairs or trios are pronounced differently. Jasper is exactly right about Mary/marry/merry, but I recall that the TV journalist Mary Alice Williams pronounced her name Marry, so I guess it happens.

One of my favorite New York regionalisms is "on line" instead of "in line," although I expect that may fade as being on the Internet becomes such a dominant meaning for online.

markm: People from northern Michigan (especially the U.P.) and northern Minnesota and Wisconsin will say "about" that way. Last time I talked to him, I was amused to hear my father, who grew up in Detroit but has lived in the Alpena area for the last 10-15 years, starting to unconsiously pronounce "aboot".

Got pegged for Midland, though I'm a Deep Southerner. (South was a very close second.) My accent isn't very strong - it's identifiably Southern, but you'd never pick out what part of the South I'm from. I also tend to adopt more pure Midland speech whenever speaking to non-Southerners; when I do that, you'd really have to pay attention to pick up on my origins.

As for "about", maybe they're trying to get at the Tidewater accent of MD-VA-NC-SC, where people really do say "oat and aboat" for "out and about".

As one who sees absolutely no difference in pronunciation between Mary, marry, and merry, could someone enlighten me as to what other people see as differences?

You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.”

Okay, that is eerily accurate...

I took the quiz via Matthew Yglesias' site and got the same results as he did, which is no surprise since he and I (and Ms. Galt) are from the same place. I suspect that this "test" is designed to identify folks from Greenwich to Philly and guesses about everything else.

"As one who sees absolutely no difference in pronunciation between Mary, marry, and merry, could someone enlighten me as to what other people see as differences?"

Mary: mare-ree
marry: maa-ree
merry" mehr-ree

That's the theory, according to my ears, at least. I pronounce "Mary" and "merry" pretty much the same.

It says I'm midland. Born in New Jersey, but moved to Oklahoma when 1 year old. Everyone says I talk way to fast.

My wife doesn't need the test - classic south oklahoma accent (we divide north and south along I-40.

Off by about 8000 miles. It claimed that I am from Philadelphia, but I am actually from Bangalore, India.

Regarding Mary, merry and marry: I pronounce "Mary" and "merry" the same, rhyming with "Kerry" (as in John). I pronounce "marry" to rhyme with "Harry".

It said that I have a Philadelphia accent. I was only there once, on a Sunday afternoon. It was closed.

Way off for me. By the test, it pegged me as Inland North.

I grew up in California, as anyone can tell by the occasional use of the words mondo, tubular, and bitchin' in my spoken English. Then again, People from the Greater L.A. area can sound like they're from just about everywhere.

Except Boston. That accent is hard for an Angelino to pull off without speech training.

As someone who has lived for 39 of my 41 years in Western Australia, I was interested to find that my accent is that of "the Inland North". I'm assuming from the context that this is fargo territory but other than that have no idea where this might be. Can someone enlighten me?

cac -

"Inland North" as used in this test seems to refer to the Great Lakes area of the United States - Michigan; Wisconsin; northern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; western New York State, and possibly to nearby parts of Canada.

One interesting distinction is in the way people pronounce the word "aunt": some rhyme it with "font" and others say "ant." As far as I can tell, there don't seem to be any regional divisions between the two pronunciations.

Pegged me as Boston - no surprise given I've lived in eastern MA all my life. However, when I travel outside the region people often express surprise that I don't sound like Ted Kennedy or Matt Damon (in The Departed (Deh-paht-ed).

As for "aunt", I have no insect relatives.

Here is another one I've noticed, not sure if it matches up with a region, although I have heard it most commonly from folks around the Baltimore area:

Days of the week, i.e.; Tuesday, does it end with 'day' or 'dee'?

Btw, if you are in the Boston area and need to pronounce these two city names, Peabody and Quincy, it is done thusly:

Peebehdee
Quinzee

Guys, the quiz is not trying to tell you were you live or grew up. Understand? It's saying what regional accent your accent sounds most like. It's not "erring" when it says you talk like a Bostonian when you've always lived in Alabama. It's possible that you didn't pick up the accent of those around you, really.

I know that I for one, don't talk like most of the people living in my region (Texas).

being from Utah and living in Oregon... We don't have no stinkin' accent.

I'll agree with you about Oregon, but Utah is another story. "School" and "skull" practically rhyme, at least on the Wasatch Front, and so do "fail" and "fell." I saw a readerboard outside a convenience store in Springville once that said "Beer for sell". And I don't know how many times I've been informed from the pulpit that the next hymn will be "We'll Sing All Hell to Jesus' Name."

About as ah-boot is also Tidewater (Virginia to the fall line).

Mine? South. Not that anyone whose ever heard me speak could miss it.

But there are so many accents in the South; their "South" is the Piedmont, not Tidewater (dropped r's, round vowels) or hill-country (chair and here rhyme).

A great idea -- good enough that I hope someone will have another go at it. As is, the quiz is just too short, with too much clustering of questions designed to identify a limited number of accents.

Years ago I met a woman (from Tulsa, for what it's worth) with an astonishingly sensitive ear for regional American accents. She could pin down where you were from with amazing accuracy -- even when there were mixed accents, as where someone grew up, say, in Florida, but had gone to college in North Carolina.

I cheated a little and pretended I'm from America - I'm from rural Kent, but my accent is pure BBC Received Pronunciation of the 1950s, since that is how my Dutch parents learned their English. Evidently, the contrasts in pronunciation in my English are the same as Jane's (whom I deeply regret not contacting during her time in London).

Nailed my Wisconsin/Illinois self. But it's not "pop" or "soda." It's pronounced "skatch."

I was born and raised in Ohio, but have lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area for 20 years. I was pleased it called me as "Midland," with "Northeast" at the bottom of the list.

My high school history teacher said I had a distinct Trumbull County accent. But there was no category for that.

Aunt is a good one. I've known the pronunciation to vary even within a family -- and not a far-flung one at that. To me the one that rhymes with font sounds funny.

And dammit, I say "wash," even though people have told me I say "warsh."

Sometimes I get caught in between accents. My poor dog would never get walked if first I had to determine whether to use a "leesh" or a "lesh."

Color me unimpressed. I've moved around a lot, so I'm not surprised that the answer was wrong. What puzzles me is why on Earth anyone in their right minds would think I'm from Philly.

Another Australian - but interestingly I got the same result as Jane's - perhaps because my Australian is "received ABC" (if there is such a thing) - the equivalent of english "received BBC".

Peabody is pronounced peabahdee by the older generation from Boston.Medford is often pronounced Mefford.Gloucester is Glosta,as Worcester is Woosta.Revere is Revea.And so it goes. And Charlestown is pronounced CharLEStown by those of us of a certain age educated in its pronunciation by grandmothers.

I am from New York. Most of the words I can hear a perceptible difference, but couldn't tell whether I ought to say they sound the same. I tried both ways -- noting the differences and admitting that they sound about the same -- both times they had me being from somewhere I have never lived. They thought either California or the Mid West.

They also didn't allow for "both". There are a bunch of words that I say two different ways.

They were only off by about a thousand miles.

Quiz said Philly for me; I was born in the UP and raised in northern Indiana. So yes, quite a bit off.

Had the same issue with Mary/merry/marry as others did: merry sounds different from the other two.

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