Where Y'all From? Wanta Soda?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  When I first moved to Boston, thirty years ago, yikes, I remember hearing someone in a coffee shop ordering a "coffee regular." Silly me, I assumed that person must be such a constant customer at that coffee shop (which I later learned was called Dunkin's, DeeDee's, or Dunkies) that the clerk knew what he meant by "coffee regular."

I soon learned it was not about the customer, it's that in Bay State parlance, "coffee regular" is coffee with cream and sugar.  And  though I call every carbonated beverage a "coke"--as in, "let’s go get a coke" even though you could order ginger ale or root beer,  here they call them all "soda." When everyone knows a soda is ice cream and syrup and fizzy water.

And when someone suggested we go down the street to a packie, I had no idea. Turned out, a "packie" is the local term for package store. By that, they meant --as we say back home in  Indiana--a liquor store.

Recently everyone 's been taking a fascinating test that purports to be able to pinpoint, based on your jargon, idioms and colloquialisms, exactly what part of  the country you are from.

DO you call it a lightning bug, or a firefly? A garage sale, a yard sale, a tag sale, a rummage sale? A sub a grinder or a hoagie or a poor boy or a spuckie?

 What do you call the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road?  (I have no special word for that I realize...)  What do you call it when it's sunny and raining at the same time? I have no word for that, either. Do you?

Did you take the test? It was really interesting, but sadly, got me all wrong, It pegged me as being from Lexington or Louisville Kentucky (!) or Mobile Alabama. (double!).  It said my speech patterns were LEAST like Jersey City. 

I'll put the link at  the bottom of  the blog so you can take it yourself--and report!

How about you, Reds?   Tractor-trailer, semi-, or eighteen wheeler? Sneakers, tennis shoes, Keds, running shoes?

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Um, it's pop, not soda, at least where I'm from...

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  When I took the quiz, my "you are most like" shading darkened as it went across New York and into New England, and was deep red (aka "you speak most like the inhabitants here") in Maine. After almost twenty-seven years living here, I say "Italian" for sub and "turnpike" for the highway, However, I also have deep linguistic roots in upstate New York and in Alabama, and, like Debs, I shift into appropriate usage wherever I am. If I planned to go into Syracuse when visiting my parents', I would say "I'm going downcity" while anywhere within thirty miles of Portland, Maine, I'd go "intown." 

In Maine, I'll order an Italian with soda, in New York, it's a sub or hero, also with soda, and in Tuscaloosa, I'd ask for a po'boy, a co'cola, and tell the cashier "Roll Tide" at the conclusion of the transaction!

HANK: Well, Roll Tide, of course.  But I say highway, whether you have to pay or not. And in Massachusetts, if you're in Boston, and headed to Sandwich, which is southeast, you're still going "down the Cape." Awesome.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh fun, I went over and took the quiz. They got me just right, as far as growing up in New Jersey anyway...I was most similar to Yonkers, Newark, and Philadelphia, which pretty much triangulates my home town! I have spent a lot of time in the South though, too. The most different dialect was East Tennessee y'all...

HANK: I just re-took it, because I realized I say Pa-JAH-ma not Pa-JAM-a, and I call  them "trucks" not semis.  Now it pegged as New York and Philadelphia too--but definitely not Oklahoma City.

Do you say crans? Or cray-ons?   Ant or Auhnt? What do you call a traffic jam caused by people slowing down to look at an accident? A rubberneck? Curiosity factor? Do you have a word for it.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I took the quiz, and I tried really hard to think "TEXAS" and not England, because I am always so culturally and linguistically confused.  I say "truck" and "18 wheeler" and "lorry." I say "roundabout", but I put "traffic circle" because that's what you say in Dallas, although I actually grew up saying "glorietta" because my family spent so much time in Mexico.  On two things I was definite--in England I would say "fizzy drink" and in Texas I would say "coke" or "soft drink" but never, never "pop." 

So how did I come out?  Deep South.  Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and Jackson, Mississippi.  Go figure.

RHYS BOWEN: There is no sense in my taking this test because I'm a hopeless case. I've only just learned to say 'truck' instead of 'lorry', trunk instead of boot, and tomayto instead of tomato.

HANK: Rhys, I want to hear you say to-MAY-to. I don’t believe it.

RHYS: Well, it takes a long time to adjust to the jargon of a new country. When I was teaching a drama class years ago I told my actors to come onstage carrying torches. They looked bewildered and asked how they were going to light them and wasn't that dangerous. I had meant flashlights, of course.

But I've lived on the West Coast for many years and we don't drink soda or pop. In Marin County we drink natural spring water and eat organic kale! (just kidding) But we do like our sourdough bread.

HANK:Kale! As you Reds know, I have no word for that.

So Reds, here’s the quiz—let us know if it surprises you!  Did it get you right?

 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?r=82444080040010600000204001200105020l018020000l0000

(And the winner of NORTH OF BOSTON by Elizabeth Elo is Kathy Reel. Kathy, when you get a chance, send me your address at hryan at whdh dot com)