Jill Duggar Dillard Part 8: They Call Him Choo Choo?

[Chickenbutt]

I took it.....had me about 30 miles north of where I actually live. Very accurate for me.

[DigDugger]

It placed me 45 miles from where I am.  

[Screamapillar]

Took it, had me in either Augusta, Georgia, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, or Montgomery, Alabama. I'm South Carolina born and raised, so kind of close I guess. My very South Carolinian Grandma might be rolling around in her grave that I could get myself mistaken for a North Carolinian though. 

[DigDugger]

So, I'm taking the quiz again and choosing the answers I think my mom would pick.  I got some slightly different questions this time.  I thought this was an interesting one:

How do you pronounce been?

with the vowel in sit   (like "bin")

with the vowel in see

with the vowel in set

other

[Marissap]

1 hour ago, EmCatlyn said:

This website has some stuff about dialects and also some maps about dialect distribution in the USA.

For all those interested in dialects:

 

Dialect Maps and Dialect Descriptions USA

Yes, dialects tend to be associated with different regions.  And what may be ok in one area is a faux pas somewhere else.  I have been mostly talking about grammar and dialect, but sounds/pronunciation are fascinating also.  Not long ago we had a discussion about the pronunciation of "pin" and "pen," didn't we?

I posted a link to dialect maps in another message, but here is a link to a fun quiz.

New York Times Dialect Quiz

Mine was dead on. MH thinks they used my internet info to determine my location lol. He's a skeptic of all things!

[socalrules]

The quiz is pretty good. It said my dialect was most like Long Beach, Fresno and Louisville. I have never been to Louisville but I am from California. 

[bingbangboom]

Regarding the dialect quiz, like, my three listed cities were:

1. The city I was born in and lived in until I started kindergarten.

2 &3 were neighboring cities in the DFW area that I lived in growing up!

Pretty accurate for me, I'd say!

 

Gah! Typing "like" unnecessarily made me feel very strange!

[EmCatlyn]

On December 21, 2015 at 7:49 PM, MatthewDuggar said:

The girls use "like" as a filler word.  I teach ESL and it's common for my students to find a filler word when they don't want to pause too often while speaking.  Some of my students that speak Korean as a native language tend to use "actually" rather than "like".  I would probably cringe if they said "like" as much as the Duggars. Usually I can't fault them in a conversational lesson, at least they are actually talking and not saying ummmm uhhhh, etc.

Yes, "like" is a "filler word."  The problem with filler words is that when you over use them, the listener may suspect that there is a "great big empty" that no number of "filler words" can fill.

Your mention of ESL reminds me of my original point.  Jill is having problems learning Spanish because she doesn't have sufficient grasp of her own language to be able to make the necessary connections between one language and the other.  

[PennySycamore]

On the dialect quiz, I got Birmingham, Montgomery and Jackson.  Many of my choices didn't register as common anywhere.

ETA: I've never lived in Alabama or Mississippi, btw.  I did have a good friend from southern Alabama, though.

[Mercer]

2 hours ago, EmCatlyn said:

I posted a link to dialect maps in another message, but here is a link to a fun quiz.

New York Times Dialect Quiz

Very interesting, but mine was way off. All three of my identified cities were in Alabama. I've never lived in Alabama and have only visited one of those cities once.

I grew up in Tennessee and have also lived in Upstate New York, Massachusetts, and Northern Canada. All of those places have definitely influenced my pronunciation and vocabulary. Apparently the quiz interpreted that combination as someplace else entirely?

[EmCatlyn]

4 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Very interesting, but mine was way off. All three of my identified cities were in Alabama. I've never lived in Alabama and have only visited one of those cities once.

I grew up in Tennessee and have also lived in Upstate New York, Massachusetts, and Northern Canada. All of those places have definitely influenced my pronunciation and vocabulary. Apparently the quiz interpreted that combination as someplace else entirely?

The Alabama and Tennessee accents are similar enough that the quiz distinguishes between them based on what you call things (firefly or lightning bug? Hoagie, sub or poor boy?) which may have been affected by where you are living now/have been living most recently.

This is a simple version of a much larger linguistic inventory done by Harvard, I think.

The other link I posted discusses some of the different dialect groups and is kind of interesting about the different names for doughnuts/cruellers.

 

 

 

[Mercer]

3 minutes ago, EmCatlyn said:

The Alabama and Tennessee accents are similar enough that the quiz distinguishes between them based on what you call things (firefly or lightning bug? Hoagie, sub or poor boy?) which may have been affected by where you are living now/have been living most recently.

I don't actually have an identifiable Southern accent of any sort, so it's more likely based on what I call things.  

[librarychick]

I took the quiz. It was extremely accurate for me. I got Jackson, Birmingham, and Montgomery. I'm from Mississippi and yes, I have an extreme Southern Accent and quite proud of it, y'all!  While I am college educated and know how to speak properly in public, around family and friends, I sound worse than Jeff Foxworthy.  Who btw has a true southern accent. Being from the south, the Duggar accents do not bother me nearly so much as the fact that they cannot string together a coherent sentence. 

on another note, concerning the use of like, I am an 80's girl.  I, like, totally, like overused like for many, many years.  I have to watch myself even now.  The MTV era/Valley girl fad is my excuse. These young women do not have one.  Lol

and by the way, howse ya mommanem??  Lol 

[TeaGrannie]

I thought I'd have a little fun with it since I'm Canadian but it gave me northeastern cities which isn't too far off since I'm from Southwestern Ontario originally.

[Bad Wolf]

I got Sacramento, Santa Rosa and San Francisco. Never lived in any of those places. Still, born in England, lived in the east and the west, so maybe I was hard to pinpoint

[Guest]

I took the dialect quiz and it gave me New York, Yonkers, and Newark/Paterson, NJ.  I grew up on Staten Island, so it was eerily accurate.  I lived in the Pacific Northwest for a few years, and here in western NYS for 10 years.  My NY accent is almost nonexistent (I'm told) but my dialect hasn't changed, I guess.  Interesting!

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

Well, that's odd.  I'm a second generation born/raised Floridian.  It matched me up to Louisville & Lexington KY, and Little Rock!  Grandparents were from TN & AL.  

[missegeno]

Wow, this quiz was really spot on for me! The cities it gave me were Grand Rapids, Cleveland, and Fort Wayne. I grew up near Cleveland, about an hour in the direction of both Grand Rapids and Fort Wayne. I haven't been back to anywhere near there in nearly a decade, but apparently I still carry the dialect in my far-away travels!

I got a little thrown off by the first question. I definitely used to say "you guys" for a group of people. It was the natural phrase every time. But when I first moved west, I got a lot of remarks about the "guys" part of it. Now, I think I actually say "y'all" most, even though I've spent almost no time in the drawly South. Maybe I spend too much time watching the Duggars.

Thanks for sharing, @EmCatlyn!

[Imagine20]

I got Minneapolis, Des Moines, and... Anchorage. Pretty accurate with the first two, I catch myself sounding like someone from the movie Fargo expecially with words like 'mom' and 'Coke.'  I also regularly use the words 'ya'  and 'uffda.' I'm a walking stereotype. 

[MatthewDuggar]

The quiz was accurate for me as well.  I got Madison/Milwaukee/Rockford.  I was born outside of Chicago and grew up in Wisconsin.  Scary for an internet quiz of 25 questions!

[Whoosh]

This was really interesting to take.  Most people say I don't have an accent at all, but people frequently can peg me from Boston based on certain word choices.  I lived in western MA until I was 9, then just outside Boston until college, then Atlanta, and since have bounced between Salt Lake City and Boston.  The quiz matched me up with Worcester MA, Las Vegas and Paradise/Spring Valley (which is right near Vegas).  

Maybe this means I am meant to MOVE to Vegas...

In other news, I am NOT from Newark, Jersey City, or Jackson, Mississippi.  Very true, very true.

[OnceUponATime]

I'm not American but if I was I would be from Boston, Yonkers or Honolulu.

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

On 12/21/2015 at 8:26 PM, EmCatlyn said:

It is not laziness.  It is a feature of their dialect.  

Some dialects don't distinguish between simple past (saw) and past participle (seen). Other dialects don't use the "perfect" tenses at all. ("Have seen" = present perfect; "had seen" = past perfect).    "I seen," is a dialect version of "I saw."

It doesn't bother me in ordinary conversation, but it is out of place in public speaking, broadcasting, and most written communication. 

I understand your point.  But isn't this something that would be corrected by teachers at a young age in say, English class?  In childhood, I had some pretty nasty language habits, and would be corrected by my parents or teachers.  If not, I'd sound pretty hillbilly-ish to this day.   
I know several people from the same area of TX and the "seen" instead of "saw" is rampant.  I've often wondered if this was just accepted and never corrected in their schools.

[Whoosh]

LOL - so I took the quiz again trying to answer as High School me.  Interestingly, some of the questions were different (and all were words that peg me as a Masshole - sneakers, soda, and one other I can't remember).  I only answered one differently than how I would answer now.  I got Boston, Springfield (where I was until age 9) and Worcester (right in the middle between the two).  Huh.

Also, I don't have a word for rain when the sun is shining, but apparently I am slightly disturbed/confused by what some of y'all call this thing.

sunshower

the wolf is giving birth

the devil is beating his wife

monkey's wedding

fox's wedding

pineapple rain

liquid sun

I have no term or expression for this

other

[Whoosh]

30 minutes ago, Tim-Tom Biblethumper said:

I understand your point.  But isn't this something that would be corrected by teachers at a young age in say, English class?  In childhood, I had some pretty nasty language habits, and would be corrected by my parents or teachers.  If not, I'd sound pretty hillbilly-ish to this day.   
I know several people from the same area of TX and the "seen" instead of "saw" is rampant.  I've often wondered if this was just accepted and never corrected in their schools.

I agree with this yet would say it would depend (obviously I guess) on your teachers/parents.  My niece was picking up a wicked Boston accent (and a few quirky phrases) in daycare when she was learning to talk.  I think my sister worked on it a little bit by trying to use those particular words and phrases "our way" more frequently and it sorted itself out.