Remember the Mary-Merry-Marry thread?

That was a fun quiz, agnespuffin, and it nailed me exactly.

"You have a midland accent" is just another way of saying, "You donÂt have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri), but then for all we know, you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

I was born in Missouri, have lived in southern Illinois, and now live in Kentucky on the border of southern Indiana. Very interesting, indeed.

Not even close:

>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."

I was born near Boston, my parents never lost their accents when they moved here to Az, and I grew up listening to western style talk. There's noting Great Lakes about me. And I call it 'soda'

Whats funny is that I am rated highest for NE, but lowest for Boston!

I'm pegged as Midland! Born in East Tennessee and in Baltimore for decades? How did that happen?

Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.

What?! I have been to that area of the U.S. far fewer times than I have been to every other part of the country.

Something is hinky about this test. Perhaps #7 threw everything off: I don't say "on" to rhyme with either "dawn" or "don." I pronounce those two quite differently, and I say "on" with a long O to rhyme with bone, lone, pone. But since I had only the two choices, I picked "don."

#13 seemed kind of screwball, to me. I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce "bag" and "vague" as rhyming.

I agree, something odd about this test. I came out the same as cindydavid, and I've never lived outside Texas in my life. Call a soft drink pop, not very likely. It's coke, or coca-cola, or maybe soda. We tend more to call them by name, not something generic.

Of course, the next highest "ranking" was the south.
I don't think the creator of this test has ever heard a southerner or a Texan speak!

"North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didnÂt think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot."

Well that was pretty good - I AM Canadian! And happen to live almost directly north of Minnesota.

Hm. Well, apparently I hail from the NE of US - NY and all that.

Actually, as some of you know, I come from S.Wales in UK...... I suppose it's a New England sort of accent that's been picked up (I haven't got much of a Welsh accent - more RP)

Dido

I am also probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. - that's what you got, Dido, isn't it? Not bad for a German living in England, I guess...

Me too. I guess it's a New England accent - but of course, mine is an Old England accent!

Entertaining, though.

The Inland North
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."

Dead on since I'm from Michigan, although I personally call 'pop' soda, but as I'm living in London now people think I'm from Ireland, and occasionally Australia, but I think they just don't listen to me speak.

And friedag, I've heard people say 'bag' like it rhymes with 'vague' ... it's interesting ...

Hmm, angelini, what part of the U.S. are "bag" and "vague" pronounced to rhyme? I've missed that one, so far. I know it's not in the Midwest (where I grew up) or the other parts in which I've lived: Texas, the South, the West, and Hawai'i.

Do they say bAYg and vAYg (long A, that's in the sound of "way"), or bäg and väg (rhymes with "bog" or "clog"), or bag and vag (rhymes with "rag" or "fag" or "mag"), or something else?

it pegged me-I grew up 15 miles outside the Philly limits, went to college 75 miles west and now live about 65 miles southwest-but a lingusits professor in grad school insisted I had a clipped, New England accent-he described it as "brittle and quick."

I came up with The Inland North, with high marks for the Northeast. Since I've lived in Connecticut my whole life, I think it was off just a little bit. I also had a hard time figuring out how 'bag' could rhyme with 'vague'. The other thing that struck me was the 'pop' vs. 'soda' -- my personal experience is that 'pop' is a Massachusetts term.

Not so fast ... probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island ... and I was born, raised and still live in North Carolina and definitely have an accent! But it's southern. Denise

Nice quiz. To my surprise, I still have a "southern " accent, despite having lived for years in the North, and despite the fact that southerners I live with here and now think I talk like a "Yankee." ;-)

It said I'm The West, which is indeed where I live, as close as we get in the US to a neutral accent. (I'm sure that I sound very American to anyone in the UK.) I grew up in The Midlands - western Pennsylvania, which is an odd blend of Midwest and Appalachia. However our parents grew up in Boston, and their fading accent diluted our emerging Pittsburgh accents, so I've probably had a neutral accent long before I moved to California.

For me, Mary and Merry are almost the same, but Marry is quite different.

Rosefolly

Well it appears I am from Philadelphia or 'Inland North' so if I ever visit those areas I hope some of you will be able to understand me . . . and I am really surprised by folk from the US who cannot understand what we call 'RP' English like what Dido and me speak (I expect Martin does too in'it/whatever).
I'm sure everyone in the UK can understand 95% of US accents.
If you cannot 'hear' the difference between 'Mary, Merry or Merry' What would "Marry me, Merry Mary" sound like?

An article below from the paper; even the Queen is becoming less posh.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Queen's English

I'm not sure what region bag and vague, sounding like bAYg and vAYgue (like way) can be found. I remember a 'new kid' at my elementary school who said it when she came. I always wondered if other people said it!

They pegged me right. I got the New York CIty/Rhode Island answer and I have lived all of my life except for 7 years in Rhode Island.
I answered "Different" to most questions.
My ex-mother-in law in California used to take me to see her friends and say to me, "Say something for these people"!
There is a very funny book written by a Rhode Islander about our accent...sort of New Yorkish...but different. As I like to say we drop a lot of r's at the end of words but we don't waste them, we use them in words that don't have any!
gbg

Philadelphia? I grew up in central, rural Kentucky and live in Louisville. I think I sound like a country-girl Kentuckian.

BTW, to be politically correct now, you must no longer call mountain folk hillbillies. The PC terminology is "Appalachian Americans." (This is a joke, all you outlanders.)

My result was "The Midlands" even though I grew up in West Virginia and have lived in Maryland ever since. When I started listening to myself on voice mail messages I really worked on overcoming my southern accent and have done pretty well. However, there are still times when people will ask where in the south I am from. No one has ever guessed that I was from West Virginia -- they always guess further south (don't know what that means).

The quiz said my accent was "Western," which is correct for this third-generation Californian --

"...Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta."

If I speak with anyone with a regional accent for more than a minute I start to take it on, though. I love hearing accents and think it's a shame so many are disappearing. I don't want everyone to speak like me -- too boring!

Well, it seems to have me pegged....somewhat. I live in central New York (grew up in western Pennsylvania... see Rosefolly's post)and had trouble with some of the pronunciations. I actually think Mary and marry sound more alike than Mary and merry. Anyway, according to this quiz, my accent makes me sound like I'm from the Northeast

angelini, thanks for your response. I still can't quite get my mind wrapped around bag and vague ever rhyming, but I went to Merriam-Webster OnLine and noticed it gives the long-A pronunciation of bag as an alternative, just as you say. I listened to the audio, too, and sure enough it's there. I'm still wondering where it is commonly pronounced that way and why I've never run across it. Now that I'm attuned to it, I will probably hear it in the next few days or weeks -- it's funny how often that happens to me.

As I like to say we drop a lot of r's at the end of words but we don't waste them, we use them in words that don't have any!Gbg, one of my favorite wandering/intrusive-R anecdotes was told by a member of another forum who was originally from Rhode Island, I think, but she had lived in the West for a number of years. On a visit back to R.I., she was asked if she wanted "Snappa" or "Tooner" for dinner. She started laughing and her family thought she had gone bananas. Similarly, our astrokath from Adelaide, amused me with how she stumbled over the actor's name, Sean Bean -- one possibility being "Shorn Born"! For those of us unaccustomed to the peripatetic R, it is a very striking feature.

"Accent" itself is a funny word. It sort of implies that the way one speaks is "accented" away from the norm. But we've all got accents...

It reminds me of a story of an English person who was on holiday in the US somewhere, and - as usual! - met a lady who said "You know, I love your accent". To which the English person said (being polite) "Thank you - I like your accent too." The American lady looked puzzled and said "But I don't have an accent..."

re: Frieda's "peripatetic R"...

I... was born.... under a wan....d'ring R.....

(I'll get my coat.)

No need to get your coat, Martin; that's funny! I bet you're a better singer than Lee Marvin (in "Paint Your Wagon").

Friedag,
Oh those R's!! But as you can see we don't waste them. We may say "salt and peppah" but then we use that r in idea saying "idea-er".
Mark Patinkin who is a columnist for The Providence Journal has written two funny books about our accent "The Rhode Island Handbook" and "The Rhode Island Dictionary". He says that Cranston RI is the "epicenter" of the dialect. They are illustrated by Don Bousquet of Quahog fame.
Okay now who knows what a quahog is?

gbg

gbg, re quahog is that the edible clam Venus/Mercenaria mercenaria native to the Atlantic coast of North America having a large heavy rounded shell
(C18 from the Narraganset, short for poquauhock from pohkent dark + hogki shell?
Oh, the advantages of a good big dictionary even before breakfast. ;-)

Someone from the US will have to expain this R business more clearly to me. Do we have it/use it in the UK??
And, an aside, while on the food from the deep theme . . . a US friend has sent me some cuttings from US papers, among which is one on the consumption of fish/sea food. It appears that the US favourites are shrimp, clams, etc. Here in the UK we eat very little of these. I think our number-one is cod (pref. deep fried in batter) and fast dying out.

I got North Eastern too, with a leaning to Philly.

Quite funny really, as I am quite sure that although I answered the questions truthfully, I could never be taken for a Yankee :-))

Frieida, most of my friends find Sean Bean rather attractive, and are just put out by my laughing at his name. I heard another interesting one the other day - a local lad with the surname of George whose parents named him Harrison............I must just be getting old!!

Of course Aussies don't sound that last 'r' sound - all those words sound as though they end with 'a'.
And that fish - around here we say 'choona' (like the man who comes to fix the piano).

Yes, we love our shellfish. One of my favorite "heart-attack" on a plate concoctions is lump crab meat molded together with a sort of sharp cheddar-mayonnaise cream sauce and baked, then mounded on top of a rare filet mignon...the restaurant calls it "boeff chesapeake"

My former neighbor moved to the deep South and "went native" with her accent-actually she outdoes the natives-and her "bag" and "vague" are as close to rhyming as makes no never mind.

Veer, I've noticed in certain parts of England people add Rs to the ends of words ... people occasionally call me Angelar for instance, or the Oasis song, 'Champagne Supernovar in the sky.' Although my English boyfriend tells me this is just to make vowel-ending words lead better into vowel-beginning words.

Also, R's are lost at the ends of many words here, too. Or maybe I've been around the South London teenagers too long. Think Vikki Pollard, 'It's much bettah' and letters are replaced with other letters, as in 'bruva' instead of brother.

angelini, I agree about the "extra r". I've been listening to British announcers on National Public Radio progs. we get here in the states and notice, for example, "Cuba" pronounced as "Cuber." Reminds me very much of when I lived in Boston and heard similar, er, distortions....:-)

Vee, there used to be a phrase in Boston mocking the dropping of the "r", e.g. "paahk the caah in Haavaad Square", or words to that effect.

cece, I've lived in the deep south and never heard "bag" and "vague" pronounced as if they rhymed. That's amazing....

I've been practicing using my very best Southern accent on the words "bag" and "vague" and I think if you use enough syllables in each word they can be made to rhyme (almost)!

I forgot to mention, there is a fascinating book on this topic: "The Story of English" by MacNeil, McCrum, and Cran. It was written to accompany the TV program explaining regional differences in US accents, as well as early influences from Angles, Vikings, Normans, and others, in the British Isles.

Veer, thanks for looking up the Latin genus for quahog. I only know how to order it "stuffies" and eat them....delicious!!
The Narragansetts are a local Native American tribe and many things are named after them around here. Used to be a beer named Narragansett "have a Gansett"!!

The R thing....don't know how to explain it but here in Rhode Island we sometimes say "ah" instead of "r", as in Peppah, bettah, lettah. have know idea how it evolved.

gbg

Give both words the vowel sound that you hear in the word hag, but draw it out to a ripple, which is as close to her pronunciation as I can get, then they rhyme after a fashion. As I said, she's more native than the natives-her number 9 has two and a half syllables.

gbg, from what you say I think we in the UK do that most of the time ie. make a ah sound in place of a 'er'.
angelini, in the area where I live (towards the SW of England) nearly everyone speaks like Vikki Pollard . . her voice is based on a Bristol accent . . . or Brissle as the locals say. The neighbouring city of Bath is known locally as Barff. It is in the county of Zummerzet, and the next door county is known as Glorstershu'.

Here is a link that might be useful: English accents round the world by an American

Veer, I've gotten pretty good at distinguishing between countries that people come from - 'Kiwis' use very short vowels and have a very different way of saying the letter 'i' in words, but I'm still not great at where in England a person is from. Yorkshire I've got, Newcastle, Liverpool, all the major noticeable accents I can usually tell, but other than that it's a mystery to me!

Angelini - I wouldn't worry. Here in England, we in the south normally divide the rest of the British Isles into Welsh, Scottish, Irish and up north! You're probably better than the average southerner here.

I did the quiz last nite-they were right on with me-inland northeast I think it said and yes, I do call soda pop.

Below is a link to some interesting results from a dialect survey.

On the above, I came up as Inland North, which is pretty far off (e.g., I have never used pop to mean soda; have used Coke to mean any brand of soda, though). I guess the Ozark dialect is not an option.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dialect Survey Results and Map

georgia, thanks for posting the above. I found it fascinating. I went through my state and see I am in a minority. Some of the terms I had only heard when living in other parts of the country, e.g. when I lived in West Virginia, I heard the frequent, quaint use of the "anymore" described. Also, a frequent southern usage I'd not thought about in years is the "I might could do that...." I also use "coke" generically to mean any "soft drink."

Other expressions were completely unknown to me, e.g. the name of the night before Halloween (?)

Thanks for posting that link, Georgia! My English boyfriend finds it impossible to believe that anyone else in the world would say Mary, marry, and merry the same way. Well, that proves it, just about everyone who lives around Lake Michigan does!