{"id":127,"date":"2005-04-18T18:14:12","date_gmt":"2005-04-18T23:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/18\/youd-never-know-i-grew-up-in-texas\/"},"modified":"2005-04-18T22:27:54","modified_gmt":"2005-04-19T03:27:54","slug":"youd-never-know-i-grew-up-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/18\/youd-never-know-i-grew-up-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"You’d never know I grew up in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

There seem to be a vast ocean of “surveys” that are all the rage on places like LiveJournal these days. Most are pretty silly in a not terribly funny way (“Answer 10 questions and we’ll tell which Canadian province you’re most like”), but this one was mildly amusing. You answer a bunch of questions about your use of American English (that’s there just to annoy WeatherGirl<\/a>) and they indicate where your linguistic influences come from.<\/p>\n

Their analysis of me is pretty accurate; they certainly picked up the mid-western bias. One might expect more “Dixie” given that I grew up in Texas, but Northwest Texas where I grew up is more Texas<\/em> than Dixie, and has heavy ties to the lower mid-west accents. That, combined with parents who grew up in Chicago and California, and nearly 20 years in non-Texas places, has made my accent pretty non-Dixie.<\/p>\n

Now I need to get WeatherGirl and Sub-Evil Boy<\/a> to do it and see where they come out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Your Linguistic Profile:<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n75% General American English<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n10% Dixie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n10% Upper Midwestern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n5% Midwestern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n0% Yankee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n
\nWhat Kind of American English Do You Speak?<\/a><\/div>\n

In breaking news<\/strong>, WeatherGirl and Sub-Evil Boy did the survey as well. Read on for their results…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not being content to just waste my own time, I subjected WeatherGirl<\/a> to this silliness as well. Her results were quite interesting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Your Linguistic Profile:<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n40% Yankee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n30% General American English<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n15% Dixie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n5% Upper Midwestern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n0% Midwestern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Given that she doesn’t actually speak American<\/em> English (at least not that she’ll admit to in public), this was a bit tricky, and she ended up leaving several questions blank. The significant proportion of Yankee and Dixie isn’t entirely surprising given the importance of different kinds of British accents to accent formation in those regions. <\/p>\n

Then, of course, we had to have Sub-Evil Boy<\/a> run through this as well to complete our family study. His were perhaps the most interesting of the lot. Given that he’s grown up in Minnesota, and given my strong proportion of mid-west, it’s odd that he had a 0% for upper-midwest. Is this too much television, or a (linguistically) weird home environment, or having travelled a lot, or … ? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Your Linguistic Profile:<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n70% General American English<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n10% Dixie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n10% Yankee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n5% Midwestern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n0% Upper Midwestern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\nNo tag for this post.\n\t

Related posts<\/h4>\n\t