12/22/2002: Word usage maps
 

http://cellar.org/2002/wordmap.gif

Not as interesting to non US people... or maybe it is?

Many moons ago the IotD featured the Soda vs Pop vs Coke web site, which graphed people's voluntary answers to that etymological question. Harvard has taken this a step further and asked about other words and pronunciations.

In particular I love the HOAGIE result: all of Pennsylvania agrees that the sandwich is not a sub after all. Although we do still have Subways here, and we understand what they're supposed to be, and sometimes we eat them, for the most part we're ordering HOAGIES made by independent sandwich builders. It was, after all, invented on Hog Island for a hearty meal for the working class workers there. And nothing you can tell me will convince me otherwise. I guess.

Discovered by Sycamore... a tip o the hat to the gent.

The real maps are here:

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/maps.php

The survey that generated them:

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/

We only need to discover why "Hog Island" generated a sandwich called "hoagie" pronounced "hoe-ggie" as opposed to "hah-geie"

Well UT, it was your computer...

Look at those maps on the study site...much more detailed, like the first soda-pop map we had on IotD.

Awesome!

I had no idea that "mischief night" as the night before Halloween was a local thing. (question 110) It looks like Philly/NYC only, except that in Michigan they call it "devil's night". Wow.

And question 117, "cellar" as a term loosely meaning "basement" is mostly from the northeast. I did not know that.

The word has lost some usage, but in St. Louis, the term "poor boy" is still well-used for a sub-style sandwich.

The difference between mischief night and devil's night is the difference between toilet papering a house and burning it down.

Great data!

I have attempted on more than one occasion to explain to my boyfriend and others the similarities and differences among hoagies, subs, grinders, Norristown zeps and sandwiches, and the overall superiority of the hoagie.

I still haven't convinced them of the reality of tomato pie.

Re: 12/22/2002: Word usage maps
 

Being non-yank myself, I'll say it's reasonably interesting, we often think of language differences as being a country thing I guess, probably because NZ isn't big enough to get any serious language differences (besides a couple, like Bach ((pronounced batch) South Islander's term for a holiday home) vs Crib (that's what they call the same thing in the North Island)).

Maori pronounciation is also slightly different depending on whether you are SI maori or NI maori (I'm not maori at all however), but it's been waay too long since Maori language class at school for me to remember what the differences are.

As for the words in the image, around here those would be (in order)...
Soft Drink
err, Filled Roll maybe
llama (pa-jar-mas)
car-a-mel (I can't imagine pronouncing that any different ??)
I think this would be gym shoes

oh and it's AL-YOU-MIN-E-UM not A-LOO-MIN-UM !!

Re: 12/22/2002: Word usage maps
 

Just went and had a look at the results, some of those questions are pretty wierd, like this one...

56. Pantyhose are so expensive anymore that I just try to get a good suntan and forget about it.
a. acceptable (27.93%)
b. unacceptable (68.49%)
c. not sure (3.57%)
(8338 respondents)

What's that about ? I don't get it, are Pantyhose something different depending on where you are ? To me they are those things that you (well women, mostly) wear over thier legs.

Panyhose are equally vile no matter where you are. :P

I can't stand 'em and go to great lengths to make wardrobe choices that don't require them.

High heels too ... I don't have any desire to break my ankle. (twisted one once, falling off a pair of Candies)

Gimme a pair of boots or sneakers anyday ...

Harrisburg too.



Welcome to Pittsburgh, where yins can warsh yer hands in the crick (creek) and then go to the has (house) and eat some dinna. :D

Re: Re: 12/22/2002: Word usage maps
 

I think it may be whether you consider "pantyhose" singular or plural ("pantyhose are" vs. "pantyhose is")

Re: Re: 12/22/2002: Word usage maps
 

Yeah, I was surprised that wasn't one of the choices. I've heard care-a-mel and car-ml before, but I always use car-a-mel.

it's not the grammatical thing. It is about the acceptability/unacceptability of a woman dressed in a skirt not to wear pantyhose. Nice girls wear pantyhose. Naughty girls don't.

(I didn't look at the responses, but I'd guess that it's an "unacceptable" statement in most of the South.)

You know, if I see a woman that wears pantyhose, tights, or stockings...that's more of a turn-on to me than bare legs, depending on the situation.

It's probably just me. :)

Whoa!
 

I use care-ah-mel to describe caramel on it's own. I use car-ml to describe caramel on something; such as a car-ml apple or car-ml corn or car-ml candies.

For the pantyhose; that is most unacceptable in the Northeast, and mostly unacceptable in the South. However, it's acceptable in a region around Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and Western Pennsylvania.

Some of your responses to this were quite interesting. I had no idea that "The Cellar" was supposed to mean "The Basement". I thought you meant a cellar, as in a place where someone stores wine.

It seems very funny to me that most (68%) of the people of the United States don't have a word for the area of lawn between the road and the sidewalk. I remember having to mow "the strips of lawn out by the street". Some of the possible responses to this question seem to be very bizarre: "tree lawn"??? "terrace"???? "berm" might be acceptable, but "parking"??? or "beltway"??? Some people think of a beltway as being that!?

Re: Whoa!
 

That strip will soon be referred to as the "Segway lane" and the side walks will be lengthened/added to so that people can walk or ride safely.

Then we can all trade the annoyance of some passing dog shitting in that section with the annoyance of some asshead zipping past the house at 12 mph while talking on a cellphone and eating a burger. :D

*raises an eyebrow*
Yes, yes it is.

Sick Sick Syc
 

Finally, a chink in the armor of the Sycamore psychy. How do we exploit? *Griff bides his time, this may be a useful little chestnut.*

Speaking for my region, pantyhose are hideous.

thigh highs yes, pantyhose no. :)

~james

Re: Re: 12/22/2002: Word usage maps
 

It's about the choice of words, not the price of pantyhose. In many places, it would sound really weird to use the word "anymore" like that.
I would say "gasoline is so expensive these days...". (I don't buy pantyhose, being a guy). I would never use the word "anymore." like that sentence did; It would sound weird to me.
I suspect using "anymore" is an American east coast thing, but I haven't looked at the results map for this to know for sure. (I grew up in Louisiana, but have also lived in Alaska, Utah, Nevada, Texas, and I now live in South Carolina).

All Y'all Got it Right
 

I don't know how 'All y'all' didn't rate mention in the usage survey -- I've heard it used by many friends from all over the south.

Another odd Picksburgh-ism: dropping the infinitive, as in "I'd love to go dahn t' th' mall with y'uns, but the lawn needs mowed."

As for the use of 'anymore' to mean 'nowadays,' that's common throughout the industrial midwest, where y'uns can't hardly find a decent job, what with the plants closing anymore.

I like hearing women say "naughty bits", but especially Cathy Rogers of "Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge" fame.
:D

More on those Naughty Bits . . .
 

. . . a friend of mine cracks up every time he hears that women cover their naughty bits with 'dainties.' (Especially when said dainties are a big ol' pair of white cotton undees.)

Pittsburg-ish translation experience
 

I grew up in the Los Angeles area but my wife is from the Pittsburg area, Beaver County/Potter Township actually. I thought their use of "yuns" instead of "y'all" was really weird. One day, my wife's family was visiting and a couple of my co-workers came by to pick me up to go to work. As they visited with my inlaws, my sister-in-law asked "so, what'a yuns do?" Everyone of my wife's family (including my wife) turned and looked at my friends expecting an answer. My friends just looked scared.

This was language never heard by them before. They had no idea what was being asked. I held it in for as long as possible and can only be glad I wasn't drinking milk, because I started laughing--hard.

Everyone had a good chuckle when I explained it to them. Otherwise they just would have thought each other rude.

Now if I can only get my wife to stop dropping infinitives. "Clothes needs warshed." Sigh.

Man, where the hell does the "r" in "warsh" come from? This is something that drives me <b>nuts</b>. I know a lot of people that say it - like it's some sort of invisible R. Well folks, <b>it's NOT THERE!</b> I don't mind the dropping of infinitives so much, but who actually looks at "wash" and sees "warsh"? AAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!

I had a friend that used to say "refrigulator" also. It's RE-FRIDGE-ER-A-TOR! She was also, of course, a member of the "warsh" crowd.

That warsh thing pisses me off too. My family's from the Midwest and they say it.

I can honestly say I've never heard anyone say "y'uns" before. Your friends, who are probably as Californian as I am, had every right to be frightened. :)

Nope. It's RE-FRIDGE-ER-ATE-ER!

Fortunately, I've never actually met anyone who warshes the dishes.

My sister has moved to Rhode Island and is starting to lose her "R's".

Hey, youse, I'm gonna pahk the cah ... and get a carriage and go into the mahket ...

Random thinkings

On the night before Halloween, which is Cabbage night,
we drink pop from the fridge with our subs while sitting on the couch (not sofa or davenport) and admire the lovely lawn cutting job someone did on the verge.

My bad. I mis-wrote. I say it "re-fridge-er-ate-er" too. I didn't mean to put emphasis on "a-tor".

Television has reduced language differences somewhat, I think. People are now able to learn California and New York accents as alternatives to their native accent.

Yeah you have...well, not in person, but here. :)

I'm still guilty of doing this from time to time.

I dunno bout youse guys but I'm goin' up the Eynon with a cup a two tree friends gonna get a caffee maybe get a sangwich er two.

the preceding was meant as a refresher course in case anyone is headed for the Wyoming Valley this holiday season.

My Dad's family came from Texas during the Great Depression, "Grapes of Wrath" style. He pronounces the invisible "R" like "warsh your hands" and "You want some squarsh".

Did you want rice with your *Ferjitas*?

"verge", eh? that's a heck of a lot of a better word for it than "tree lawn" or "beltway" or "terrace"!

No, it isn't. But you're still too young to follow <a href="http://www.deviantdesires.com/map/mappics/map81002.gif">this link</a> in AU. So don't.

But not to worry:
<blockquote><i>
When you are grown to man's estate
You shall be very proud and great
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with your toys.
</i></blockquote>

Perhaps <a href="http://www.cellar.org/member.php?&action=getinfo&userid=205">&nbsp;this user</a> warshes clothes.

Or not. :-)

You've thoroughly warped my sense of reality, Maggie. :3eye:

And I'm trying to start another entomological aberration:

"CokeOrPepsi"

Because I'm REALLY tired of 'Oh, we only have [Pepsi | Coke]'

Just charge me $1.50 for $0.06 worth of whatever caffeinated Car-a-mel colored carbonated Corn Syrup crap you've got.

Oooh goodie, I'm always looking for more reasons to mortify my family by being 'naughty'.....;)

Dagney

Who's naughty just about every day of the week if this is the definition of it :)

Your association with BrianR hasn't convinced your folks you're naughty??

Just another public service I perform. :-)
You can say that, but the response will still be "Is Pepsi OK?"

I hate those colas. They're both disgusting.

Associations....
 

Well...considering the folks have yet to meet BrianR......They do have a fairly good idea of the extent of my naughtiness, i just like to ohhh tease them with it :)


Dagney

Funny. *My* family was mortified when I *wore* pantyhose. :-)
Fortunately it was just a phase.

I'm glad you got over that Maggie! (Bet you are too ...)

There is an inappropriate question I've asked several of my friends ... did you lose the ability to parallel park, and develop an urge to stop for directions? (Best answer so far: "I couldn't parallel park before ...")

Well, you're right about that one. I was never very good at parallel parking. And yet I seem to taxi airplanes with reasonable dexterity.

As for stopping for directions, I'm still resistant to that--my experience so far has been that the people who are available for such questions (gas station attendants, convenience store clerks) seldom know their local geography very well, and worse, can't be relied on to admit they don't know when they don't. I have a lifelong love of cartography and navigation; asking for directions seems like cheating somehow. Perhaps that's a rationalization, but to the extent that the resistance is gender-based, I think it is it is most likely a matter of socialization.

My daddy the preacher resisted having any other family member able to drive *his* car...only when diabetic retinopathy disabled him did my mother learn to drive. One of my big acts of adolescent rebellion was to buy a used motorcycle shortly after dropping out of college and learn to ride it on the church lawn. The very day my learner's permit arrived, I set out on a road trip to visrt my girlfriend.

In Chestertown, Maryland (a college town on the eastern shore, a distance of about 80 miles)
At night.
In the rain.
In October.

It was quite a ride, and yet I only made one wrong turn. Interestingly enough, the first leg of my "long solo cross-country", one of the rites of passage of a student pilot, followed approximately the same route as that jaunt en route to Salsbury MD. "As the crow flies" is a bit easier, though.

I'm much better about asking for help when shopping, although still not at the level of helplessness some people expect of females. I have especially enjoyed some of my encounters with Radio Shack clerks, though, whether shopping for baterries or obscure antenna parts for our amateur radio stations. It's good dirty fun to ambush them with an actual knowlege of electronics.

I grew up in a city, where it was necessary to parallel park. Yet, I failed it on my drivers test, and still can't do it very well to this day...even with a Geo Metro. In fact, I think I was better at parking my Chevy Caprice than the Metro. That is sad. :)

Must agree with you on the directions thing ... definitely a matter of personal style ... I'll stop any buy a map before I'll ask for directions, but then I was a geography and planning major in college.

As far as parking goes ... I'm a grad of the Stevie Wonder school of parallel parking. I don't do too bad, but thats mostly because I took a couple classes in grad school in a building that the best parking for was on-street metered parking. :P

I didn't have to learn it for my driver's exam ... Norristown Barracks didn't make you parallel park. But man, am I good at three point turns ...

And syc ... sometimes with a larger car you have a better idea of what spaces you'll fit in. With a smaller car, you sometimes try for spots that are about six inches too short.

The Guido School of Parallel Parking
 

Hah! I'm a graduate of the NYC school of parallel parking, which teaches that you back up till you hit the bumper of the car behind you, then pull up till you hit the bumper of the car in front of you, and so on, till you're in.

This appalls my beau, who believes that glove boxes were invented in order to stash the gun that will be used without question on anyone who so much as looks funny at his vehicle, which happens to be a ten-year-old pickup truck.

Well, isn't that what bumpers are for? Of course, this technique doesn't work so well nowadays, with everyone's car rigged to explode into an earsplitting din if so much as caressed by a light breeze.

Perhaps the spatial distortion concept comes into play there, Wolf...

I just find it funny that I could squeeze that big bastard into a spot on one of Chicago's small streets, yet I have the worst time parking a Metro in a decent-sized spot along Market Street in Philadelphia. In fact, the Caprice is the only car I was able to parallel park halfway-decent, out of the dozen or so cars I've owned/driven on a regular basis (from a 1973 Chrysler New Yorker to the Metro).

Re: The Guido School of Parallel Parking
 

IMHO, it's called a sidearm because one wears it on one's side ... the glove box is way too far to reach.

And what would you do if you were outside the vehicle when someone looked funny at it?

Besides, where would you keep your gloves?

Oh, wait. Didn't you say you were in Baltimore? No wonder you can't carry. Nevermind.

Re: The Guido School of Parallel Parking
 

(The Cliff Clavin side of slang’s personality emerges)

It’s a little known fact that both the automotive glovebox and the automotive “roof” were both intended for use with firearms. The glovebox was originally sized to hold a Colt 1911 as well as a Colt 38 caliber revolver simultaneously. The original roof was designed as a platform for turret mounted Thompson sub guns and the interior had controls to allow the front passenger to control the firing and aiming of the guns. In fact, the Ford motor company had promoted this feature heavily in their brochures. Unfortunately for Ford, at that time the general public was granted their God given right to bear arms per the second amendment and generally didn’t feel the need for the turrets because they were quite content to tote their Tommy guns. Sadly, after the firearms control act of 1934, which mayor Daley pushed for to prevent the average Joe from interfering with mob activity, the feature was seen as irrelevant. The manufacturing for the “roof” also had some other usefulness though and was continued after the ban.

Wow, I didn't know that! ;) (she said, despite her proclivity for being infrequently astonished.) I love how I learn something new here every day.

Just think, if the evolution of the design of cars as personal armament extensions had continued to the present day, that kid wouldn't have had to squeeze into the trunk to shoot all those folks in Virginia and Maryland!

Re: Re: The Guido School of Parallel Parking
 

That's why I have the power moonroof.

FAIR WARNING: If you're riding with me, shotgun may just mean that ...

Even though most of them were in the Maryland victim disarmament zone, it was much safer for him to hide when shooting Virginians.

I sure wouldn't take guidance on firearms history from someone who thinks there's any reason to turret mount a Thompson. There was that SUV with the twin .50s in a thread here a while back, though. :-)

Re: Re: The Guido School of Parallel Parking
 

I'll give you the glove box as I have no knowledge of them, but considering early automobiles were basicly horse carriages with motors attached it seems unlikely machine guns were the reason for roofs. Fully enclosed carriages have existed for hundreds of years (famous example: the Queen's Gold State Coach was built in 1792), well before the introduction of automatic weapons.

Missing the Point
 

Um, yer kidding, right? I know slang is a veritable compendium of useful information, but surely you didn't think he was serious when he made his remarks about the design of the automobile? Or that we actually believe it? It's just a joke man; chill out!

(slang rubs his chin in deep thought)

I thought the Cliff Clavin reference was enough to indicate that I was joking, aside from the ridiculousness of the actual post.

The general rule is though, that most all of my posts are an attempt (not always successful Mag :) ) to be funny. I also have a bad habit to trying to steer any topic into firearms promotion or debate.

<H2>AND</h2> I can bearly spell, express complete thoughts/sentences and butcher grammar. But......I'm pretty comfortable with that. :)

Don't worry, slang, I think 99 44/100ths (Hey! That's me!) of the readers got the joke.

But I was not joking about the way New Yorkers park -- I was actually taught to do it that way! Doesn't fly too well out here in Mighty-White-land (the suburb where I currently reside).