2 March 2019

Pinpointing

Recently, "The New York Times" has been hosting two very clever dialect quizzes. After quickly processing responses, the facility then suggests where the respondent hails from.

Now I left my East Yorkshire homeland in 1972 - over forty five years ago. I have lived in Sheffield since 1978 and I have travelled to many other countries. And yet, and yet... in spite of all this and in spite of my four and a half years in higher education the dialect quiz finally suggested that I was from East Yorkshire. My hot spot region included Scarborough, Kingston upon Hull and Sheffield with my home village being in the very heart of this hot spot.This was my end map:-
There's a British version of the quiz. Go here.

And there's also an American version. Go here.

I have always been proud of my roots and proud of my East Yorkshire accent and the language choices I make in my sub-conscious. I have never attempted to modify or alter the way I talk. Why should I?  

In a small way I found the quiz  life affirming. It confirms where I hail from and it reassures me that in spite of everything there's a big part of me that has stayed the same through the years. If you are interested and British or American, you might wish to give this ingenious quiz a go yourself.

38 comments:

  1. I'm a believer...and always have been...that one never changes...not the inner self. We may broaden our horizons; our learnings etc., but the person we are is who we always are. That is what I have always believed....and I can only speak for myself, about myself, of course...that that is how it is with me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I agree with you. The essential "self" does not change. The voice in our heads is the same one.

      Delete
  2. I just spent ages doing the full 96 questions. For some of the "choose all that apply" questions I would choose many of the options in writing, less in speech, or choose differently according to audience. I think some answers were not sydney answers but came from my kiwi mum.... Or maybe she inherited them from an aussie grandfather.

    The quiz knew I wasn't from the UK but said my speech was closest related to the general London region, which makes sense because sydney English has had a heavy cockney influence.

    I kinda love this stuff, thank yoy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad "yoy" enjoyed it Kylie!

      Delete
    2. That word is highly localised in its use!

      Delete
    3. Narwee to be specific

      Delete
  3. Mine turned out to be South East England and this is correct.
    Briony
    x

    ReplyDelete
  4. I did all the hundreds of questions.......it put me smack in the E. Midlands....I was originally from Leicester ! Very interesting , and clever as I have lived longer in the SE ! Left Leicester in 1974 .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are like me then. You left physically but Leicestershire remains deep inside your psyche.

      Delete
  5. I did this quiz a few weeks ago and the result was the same for me - my Sheffield roots despite formative years spent in the midlands and south Wales and nearly 30 years in Cheshire!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is something I'll have to try! Many years ago, a business partner from England met with me and my boss at a trade fair. We talked iver dinner and he pinpointed the way my English sounds to the Barnsley region - Steve was from Wath-upon-Dearne, and he has had the biggest impact on my English from all the influences over the more than four decades I've been speaking it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In Barnsley folk use "thee" and "tha" etc.. and a fish and chip shop is a "chip oil". It will be interesting to pretend that you are English when you try the quiz.

      Delete
  7. The American version is only 25 questions. I've taken this quiz before--it always puts me smack dab in the middle of the southeast US. No surprise there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Howdy! How y'all doin' honeypie? Got any chewin' t'bacco?

      Delete
    2. Haha...you obviously have never spent time with anyone from South Carolina if that's what you imagine we sound like!

      Delete
    3. I went and took the U.K. version for fun. It said, "You're definitely not from around here, are you?" but it showed a map with some pink areas where there were a few similarities...all in the middle southern portion of England. For what that's worth.

      Delete
    4. An interesting exercise. I might try the American version.

      Delete
  8. My result said Providence, Rhode Island (I was born in Pawtucket, next door) and Birmingham, Alabama (I've lived in Atlanta, Georgia for 44 years but my daughter is in Birmingham). Fascinating! The test said Mrs. RWP was from Birmingham, Montgomery (both in Alabama) and Jackson (Mississippi), although she was brought up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and near Raleigh, North Carolina. Doubly fascinating! My conclusion: The test is fun, but is both right and wrong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The test is refined and made more accurate by the respondents indicating where they are from.

      Delete
  9. I'm like Jennifer- deep south. Although the cities it showed that were most similar were Columbus, Ga., Montgomery, Alabama, and Jackson, Mississippi. Which, I'm not convinced of. The coloration showing the deepest shade representing similarity to me definitely colored the area I do live in.
    Interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  10. But, it doesn't show in your writing!!! My wife is a Royston kid. She came here in 1953. Some of the speech is still with her .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You mean Royston near Barnsley? That was in the middle of a very productive coal mining area.

      Delete
  11. It was spot-on for me, Buckingham Place being right in the centre of the map. Very clever quiz.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love tests like this. I grew up in the south (Arkansas) but lived in California and Colorado a few years before settling in the midwest (Missouri). My results were primarily midwest leaning towards southern which sounds right. I had a very heavy southern accent when I moved to California and people would ask me to talk just to hear it. This embarassed me so I tried to lose as much of it as I could. I hope I didn't bring shame on my southern ancesters by doing so!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Over in California you could have made some money at fairs just by talking in your old southern accent. There would have been queues outside your tent.

      Delete
  13. I am mourning the fact that there is no Canadian test. I got the same "you're not from here, are you?" result as Jennifer when I took the available tests :)

    I'd love to see this expanded to Canada. Our east coast has many influences, including Irish, Scottish, French and Dutch, and I'd like to see which ones I've fallen prey to!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. It is a shame. Why not send a stinging letter of complaint to "The New York Times"?

      Delete
  14. Well I ended up in Bath, where I had spent 27 odd years. Originally I am from the 'Black Country' left at 15, but that did not show up - due to elocution lessons maybe?

    ReplyDelete
  15. I took the quiz Mr.Pud, it said I was from Liverpool, or Isle of Man, pretty accurate I'd say😂

    Just for the heck of it, I took the American version of the quiz, thinking it would say I was probably from New Hampshire or oneoof the more northenn states, but interesting enough, it
    determined Georgia was my place of raising....
    Neat post
    Jo

    ReplyDelete
  16. Sorry about the typos, darn autocorrect at work
    Jo

    ReplyDelete
  17. The quiz recognized me as "Definitely not from around here are you?" (which is of course quite accurate as I learned English as second language in Sweden, and never lived in Britain...) But if I were, they'd place me in the London area, or possibly Cambridge! (Not a bad guess, I suppose. Lots of all kinds of people living in London; and one or two of my university English teachers may well have studied at Cambridge...)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Got me spot-on. Almost the same map as you.

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

Most Visits