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txmarti

Calling all native Texans

TxMarti
9 years ago

beaglesdoitbetter posted this link to a dialect quiz in the New York Times. I have taken several of these type quizzes before and they usually put me right where I grew up. But not this time.

I'm just curious if my dialect has changed from being around so many people from other places, or if it is the quiz.

So if you have time, take it and report where it put you.

It put me in the Birmingham/Montgomery Alabama area.

Comments (16)

  • melvalena
    9 years ago

    I got: Baton Rouge,Shreveport, Mobile

    Born and raised in west Texas.
    I think its the quiz.. That NYT guy doesn't count Texas as part of the US maybe?

  • jolanaweb
    9 years ago

    Mine was all south but the most similar shades were going west in Tx
    That was fun, lol I seldom think about how different "we" sound compared to the rest of the world, till it is pointed out, lol

  • carrie751
    9 years ago

    Well, as a native Texan, I am highly offended by the results of Jackson, Baton Rouge and of all places.........Rochester. Go figure. Agree, not a very good test if you want real results.

  • roselee z8b S.W. Texas
    9 years ago

    It was fun taking the test, and they had all my answers except the term: 'hell strip'. But my computer stalled and wouldn't give me the results. I'll try again afterwhile ...

  • PKponder TX Z7B
    9 years ago

    I got Little Rock (I was actually born in Benton, AR) Mobile, AL and Lexington, KY.

    I've been in Texas so long, I feel native!

  • msrose
    9 years ago

    It was pretty close for me. I was born in Texas and have lived most of my life in Texas. We moved around a lot when I was growing up and did live in Louisiana a couple of time. The quiz picked Ft. Worth, Shreveport, and Baton Rouge (never lived near here).

  • mary_c_gw
    9 years ago

    It got my area in California, even though I haven't lived there in 40 years, and for the last 30+ years I've been living with a Brit, in Texas.

  • boncrow66
    9 years ago

    I am native Texan and it put me in Houston, I live one hour from Houston. Pretty good

  • springroz
    9 years ago

    I am a native Houstonian, and it put me from Houston to Little Rock.

    Nancy

  • gmatx zone 6
    9 years ago

    Wow! It hit the nail right on the head. Listed Amarillo, Lubbock, and Oklahoma City. Was born 31 miles west of Amarillo and have lived around here nearly all my life. Always heard you could tell where someone was from by their dialect and expressions used, but this was unbelievable.

  • cattyles
    9 years ago

    It was really accurate for me, too. My most similar showed Lubbock, Amarillo and Little Rock due to the use of Coke to refer to all sweet, fizzy drinks. Least similar was the far NE coast because of pronouncing Aunt like ant in all uses.

    I was born to 2 native NW Texans in Memphis, TN and raised there until I was 15. I have lived 30 miles west of Lubbock since then.

  • cattyles
    9 years ago

    I've sitting here wondering why I have no word for the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street? The house I have lived in the for the past three years doesn't have one. It goes: lawn, sidewalk, street.

    Before that, there was always that strip of grass. I have spent enough time on the Gardening forum that I know this is what is being referred to when someone has a question about a Hell Strip, but I still don't use that to identify it.

    Do any fellow NW Texans have a name for this? Is our name for it "the grass between the sidewalk and street"?

    I've always called the grass between divided roads the meridian. But that's just because I was trying to think of median once and said meridian by mistake and was made fun of by someone from Meridian, Mississippi, lol.

  • TxMarti
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    My dad worked for a company that moved him around a lot until I was a year old, and I have lived in Texas all my life except for the first year and one year when dh took a job in OK. My parents were both born and raised in the panhandle and that's where I lived until I was 22, and the remaining years in DFW.

    Still, the survey put me mostly in Alabama and Arkansas and I think it was because of freeway which is more popular in California, cot and caught which I pronounce differently, 18 wheeler instead of semi, frosting and icing which aren't the same to me, crayon with ah sound, supper doesn't exist for me, and an easy college class never had a name for me unless it was an Easy A Class.

    To me, cray-ahn and the last syllable rhymes with dawn are the same. I guess because I pronounce dawn as don. And icing is a verb and frosting is noun. So I am icing a cake and then it has frosting.

    The one that made me laugh was aunt. I grew up saying ant, my parents said ant, my grandparents said ant. But after I was grown and gone, my mom started saying aunt like aughnt, and she didn't just say aunt, she said auntie.

    She also went through a phase where she changed patio (pat like hat - ee - oh) to (pot - ee - oh). I guess she was watching Brit tv or something. When I asked her why she was pronouncing it like that, she said she always had and denied ever pronouncing it "right". She did eventually quit saying pot-ee-o, maybe her friends said something about it too, but she never quit saying auntie like aughntie. But I know if I had grown up with aughntie, I would have said aughntie too.

  • sabalmatt_tejas
    9 years ago

    This is interesting. I'm not a native Texan, have lived here for 11 yrs. It nailed me- I'm from Kansas City, Missouri and that was the first City it located based on my responses!

  • marilyn_c
    9 years ago

    They nailed it for me. I live about 45 miles from Houston and they put me right at Houston.

  • dbarron
    9 years ago

    Well, I'm not from Texas...but caught this rolling by.

    I live and grew up in Arkansas, and it suggests:
    Tulsa, Toledo, Rockford...so quite right I guess.