These are fun vids:

Spot on for me—-moved to SoCal when I was 6. Both parents were born and raised in Philly but obviously their dialect didn’t stick.

Nancy, that's funny, because I live in Santa Rosa and sound like everyone else in the Bay Area. I think there are some generational differences. I don't recognize any of the terms for taking an easy class in school. I learned "frontage road" eons ago and don't know if it's used anymore here, but apparently they do in SLC. Go Utes!

I simply could not settle on one term for casual shoes when we're active. I call them "Nikes."

Apparently we all get different questions. Perhaps based on one question, they lead you down a path to pinpoint further. Interesting.

We have no word for the strip of lawn between curb and sidewalk?

That was interesting. I have not lived in Ohio since 1979, and have adapted to New England vocabulary and pronunciation but not entirely. Richmond, Baltimore and St. Louis were the cities associated with my profile but I've never lived west of Ohio, nor in the South.

seagrass (still trying to regain my identity)

I had no idea that the night before Halloween is a thing unto itself.

That was fun and spot on for me. I’ve lived in North Alabama all my life although I don't have as much of a southern pronunciation or term for some words as others. Probably because of all the travel I have done across the country and learned to adapt.

I am not sure how the quiz pegged me, but NYC to Washington DC is dead on.

Yep, hell strip here too because that strip bakes in hot weather. One of our first projects in this house was to remove the St Augustine grass in the hell strip and plant heat-loving natives. Fun quiz, and it pegged me correctly.

The dinner/supper thing is still pretty prevalent where I live. I had a repairman tell me he would be by after ”dinner.” I asked him if he meant the middle of the day or evening. He meant the middle of the day. My family always called the midday meal ”lunch.”

I've given this quiz to so many people over the years and it's always been at least fairly accurate. It nailed our son and daughter, both born in different states and different regions of the country, living in their birth states for one year and six months respectively followed by domestic and international moves every 2-4 years. I recently had my SIL in take it and his results were spot on.(The questions do vary.)

Wooder and Iggles would have nailed it, too, Ded! Actually, it nailed me as well, but there are so many things that have changed in my vocabulary after leaving the PhilaPa area, that I went with the terms I grew up using/hearing in our family where we had generations of Philadelphia-area folks.

Pegged me too.

Cyn, what’s an iggle? From context on other comments, I’m assuming ”wooder” is water. Is that right?

Mine was the same as Nini’s too. Put me in Mississippi or Alabama, but I’m from the Mississippi river delta region of Arkansas. so very close.

It pegged me too. Pop is always a giveway!

I don't recognize any of the terms for taking an easy class in school. I learned "frontage road" eons ago and don't know if it's used anymore here, but apparently they do in SLC.

Same here -- it was "easy A" or "mickey" [as in Mickey Mouse] back when I thought about my GPA. Ditto for "frontage road," and "big rig" is the phrase used in the local traffic reports. "Big rig dumped a load of gravel on the southbound 110/Harbor Freeway this morning around 5 AM, and traffic is backed up all the way from downtown to wherever you're heading."

We have no word for the strip of lawn between curb and sidewalk?

I've always known it as a parking strip, but that phrase wasn't listed.

Wow! It nailed me. "Tulsa & Oklahoma City."

Nancy, same on all counts.

Rockford, IL, Fort Wayne, IN, and Jackson, MS.

Growing up as a military brat in the south/mountain west, mid-Atlantic and Florida panhandle, with parents from the upper midwest, and with my 20s spent in the deep South, I guess it makes sense that my personal dialect is most like that of folks from three cities where I’ve never lived, only one of which I’ve ever even visited.

My dad is from South Bend, IN and went to college in Lafayette, IN, so I guess that could explain the Ft. Wayne outcome. I lived in Alabama from age 21-48, so maybe that’s the Jackson, MS piece. Rockford? Idunno. Idunno at all.

Bbstx, LOL. That is how we pronounce the name of our football team. Some people call them the Eagles. And yes, wooder is water.

My map is very confused, but I guess that makes sense as I have lived across the country. However, I have never lived in the New York/New Jersey area.

Eagles? I was trying to get ”Pickles” out of it!! HAHAHA

Bummer, pegged my husband, NYC, not even close for me. I found some of the questions puzzling, like I never say supper, but I know what supper is as opposed to dinner. Frosting versus icing, I say both. The Britishisms were interesting, boot sale, sarnie, I wonder where those are said here.

I've taken this quiz multiple times (it's been around a while) and it narrows me down to a section of Eastern Washington where I grew up and Modesto near where my parents grew up. But it always ultimately gets me wrong, and it comes down to the caught/cot question. I don't pronounce them the same, and their algorithm thinks that people in my part of Eastern Washington do. Given how late that part of Eastern Washington was settled and the fact that most residents of my parents generation were born somewhere else (so people of my generation grew up in households with different accents and word use), I think generalizing about the accent of the area is a stretch.

I've also changed my word choice as I've moved around as an adult, since you get funny looks when you use words not common to a region. I had a Canadian coworker (from Toronto, I think) who called a garbage disposal a garburator. First and last time I've heard that in real life.

"We have no word for the strip of lawn between curb and sidewalk?

I've always known it as a parking strip, but that phrase wasn't listed."

Parking strip for me too (raised in northern California, past 30+ years in Oregon)

A strange experience I had a few years ago while I was on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I talked to an Australian man (a linguist? accent expert?) for just a few minutes, and he instantly pegged me as being from northern California!

Extreme northeastern United States and Boston which makes sense (Nova Scotia)

But I didn’t see items about hallowe’en or supper!

I got a question about grass between two roads which to me is distinct from a sidewalk strip/hell strip. The two roads I would call a boulevard and I call the grass a median.

Ah yes, just took it again and got five or six different questions.

The strip of grass between the sidewalk and curb is commonly called a "tree belt" in my neck of the woods, It nailed my New England location.

mtnrdredux_gwOriginal Author

12 hours ago

We have no word for the strip of lawn between curb and sidewalk?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In Chicago it's called the parkway

Nailed it. It gave me Akron, Fort Wayne, and Rockford IL. I grew up in a suburb of Akron, though I've lived in the south much longer. I guess you can't take the Ohio out of the girl.

That was fun! It pretty much nailed me NYC/ Newark NJ/ Yonkers.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, moved to Queens and Manhattan, then parts of NJ (but never north of Route 78) so not sure about the Yonkers bit but I suppose close enough- and finally SE Pa.

The rubber soled shoes used for gym was one of the more defining questions.:)

as was Merry Mary Marry

Zalco, ditto on the dinner/supper question. I never say supper, but I know what people mean when they use it. Dinner was always the evening meal, regardless whether we had roast beef or bacon and eggs.

My sister and DBIL are visiting. I’ve got them taking the quiz while we drink our coffee this morning. This is going to be interesting!

ETA: after taking the quiz, my sister got the same region as I but with a weird outlier, Tallahassee! She stopped there once on her way to Disney World.

Gizmo, thank you so much for the vids on accents. I only understand half (tbh maybe less) of what he is saying, but am fascinated, nonetheless.

We only had supper on Sunday nights because we had dinner in the early afternoon.

salonva, I got the same locations -- NYC/ Newark NJ/ Yonkers -- and it pretty much got me (NYC). I think the "hero" sandwich did it for me. I've done this before over the years and it's always been pretty accurate for me.

Though to get the right results, I had to I ignore living for the past 25+ years someplace where supper/dinner is a big deal. No-one ever said supper when I was growing up -- when my parents would go to London or Paris, they'd have supper after the theater or a concert, but that was the extent of it and it made supper seem very glamorous to me.

But here in rural western Canada I've had the same problem as bbstx -- I still ask people which meal they mean when they say "dinner". My family always called the noon meal lunch, which was almost always sandwiches, and the larger evening meal dinner. Here in a rural area, a lot of people, esp the generation of my in-laws, call the noon meal dinner, and the evening meal is supper. Lunch is what you get at an outdoor auction sale, or the cold meal (usually sliced meat, cheese, cheese) you get after a funeral or around midnight at a wedding. I think a lot of younger people around here call the noon meal lunch and the evening meal supper.

In our home, even though lunch is often leftovers rather than sandwiches (because we farm and are around the house), we still call it lunch, and the evening meal is either dinner or supper, which are interchangeable.

It pegged me well - Chicago/Aurora. Although I never lived in either my parents were Chicago born and I lived only 30 miles north of downtown Chicago, straight up the lake.

The city owned but homeowner maintained area between sidewalk and street is a parkway, all athletic or fashion athletic shoes are gym shoes, those sweetened carbonated beverages are the outlier that pushed me to Detroit with pop but that was my family generic name for all of them... Mom can I have pop with dinner instead of milk?

It nailed me, as well. Although I grew up in Michigan, I’ve spent the last 30+ years in New Mexico, and Albuquerque, Denver and Tucson were where it put me. I don’t recall a pop/soda question but in Michigan we said “pop” and I still call it that.

The dialect videos are fascinating. I was hoping there would be something from the Bay Area, but I suspect we have a fairly generic West Coast accent. I do think San Francisco has a distinctive accent, at least it seemed so when I was a kid and my SF family got together. They didn't sound anything like we did in the South Bay.

It identified me as being from Buffalo, where I've never lived (or visited). I grew up in Michigan, lived in France, then northern California, and later moved to the Washington DC area. Somehow this must have messed with my vocabularly!

I don't see a quiz in the OP link, but I did a search for similar quizzes and got results for Northeast U.S., The South, and Indiana. I've never been to Indiana, and I've never lived in the South, unless you count Houston, which I guess is close enough.

Can someone provide a new link to the quiz? Evidently it is very different from the ones I took.

Here it is Lars. ( It's still there in the original post--- at least for me!!)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

They did not get me at all. According to them I'm from LA Anaheim and Minneapolis. I'm actually from BC Canada. Perhaps more of my auntie who is from LA seeped into my words than I realized. Also I had to say other for a few things like soda as we call it soda pop. Oh well :-) I still feel like me a person who fits well into where I am so I guess that's all that counts.

I think mine was a failure in the cities suggested. Never been to any of them, however at least the area where I live is not blue (been here for almost 20 years in the area), before that I spent several years in a blue area for me.

They had me pretty well pegged.

It put me at Modesto or SLC, and I live right between them, so I'd say it nailed me. I think I have a few "odd" sounding words because my mom was raised in the midwest and sometimes I use her words for things. I'm sure there is also some confusion to my growing up in NorCal and my longer residence in the Inner Mountain West.

I decided to try a different browser. The quiz does not work in Firefox, but I did get it to show up using Chrome.

Here's the map I got, using Chrome browser:

It looks like I should feel right at home in Oklahoma, but I've only been there briefly, and I've never been to Missouri. It also looks like I would feel at home in northern NJ, Long Island, NY, Baltimore, WV, and coastal California, not to mention most of Texas.

I took the test again and was given different questions: