9 ms·

Reddit[1] made me aware of 2 specific examples: "pin" == "pen" : http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/81929757765/cather-wren-catherine-fangirl-and-the-pinpen

• Pharylon 9y ago
  On the "soda vs pop vs coke" question, as a child I would have never used any of those words. Here in Western NC, we said "soft drink" for sweet carbonated beverages. People my age (late 30s) and older still do, but the younger generation has picked up "soda."
  • santaclaus 9y ago
    I'm from Durham, NC and for 22 years hadn't heard 'coke' refer to anything other than, well, a coke (I always said soda or soft drink). It wasn't until I moved to NY that I learned of the 'coke' for soda stereotype about southerners! (Don't get me started on 'law'yer vs 'loy'er, though...)
  • FroshKiller 9y ago
    In the Piedmont, we said "drink." Growing up, I knew what "soft drink" meant and understood the distinction, but nobody among my family & friends used that phrase. Also never heard anyone call anything but a Coke a Coke, which is a really common stereotype of Southern English.
    • Pharylon 9y ago
      I'm from the Piedmont too, Gaston County to be specific. I know what you mean. Most of the time you'd just ask if they wanted a drink, and by context they knew what you meant. I'd say "soft drink" only if I needed to narrow it down. "Do you want something to drink?" "Tea or a soft drink if you have it."
    • darrmit 9y ago
      I too am from the extreme eastern part of the Piedmont (Wayne/Johnston) and we always said "drink" to indicate something other than water or tea. A Coke is a Coke.
  • tyingq 9y ago
    Tonic was also a popular term for any type of soda (coke, sprite, etc) in the northeast US, at least in the 1980's. And pronounced like tawnic.
    • hirsin 9y ago
      How else is it pronounced? Tawn like lawn,ic
      • jamiek88 9y ago
        Tonic with the 'ton' pronounced like 'on'is the only way I've ever heard it pronounced. My wife is from Boston too. I love stuff like this, I've lived in Texas 13 years and have been pronouncing taco wrong until pointed out to me. They say itmore like tocko than tacko like Brits do.
        • hirsin 9y ago
          Heh, this is the issue, which makes me also love this stuff. I pronounce 'awn' and 'on' in 'lawn' and 'on' the same. Grew up in Pittsburgh so that tends to do it.
          • cassowary 9y ago
            Take a look at the map in the original article. The areas covered in either blue slashes or blue hatches (i.e. left and right slashes intersecting), which is most of the US, has "Don" = "Dawn". There's also the "on" line, so for those who distinguish "Don" and "Dawn", some Americans pronounce "on" as if it was "awn". For me "tonic" has a fairly short vowel in the first syllable. Whereas "Tawnic" would have a longer vowel. There's also a different in sound. You might hear my "aw" as if it was a long "o" sound. The Australian vowel system is really nothing like the American vowel system.
      • tyingq 9y ago
        Hmm, I was trying to note the distinct New England sound of it. Maybe "tahwn-ick" says it better? The first syllable is drawn out much more than I would hear that word somewhere other than New England.
  • cat199 9y ago
    calling soft drinks 'coke' I think is more a TX thing.. so some confusion as TX was part of the confederacy ('the south') but isn't exactly 'the south', as most 'real southerners' would agree (but not southern leaning TXans)
    • michaelcampbell 9y ago
      "Coke" as a general term is popular here in the Atlanta area; where the actual Coke HQ is located.
  • Splines 9y ago
    When I grew up I used "soft drink" as well, but where I live now (PNW) nobody understands this, so I just use "soda".
  • sudosteph 9y ago
    I think you're onto something. If you check the "other" responses for NC on popvssoda.com, you'll see "drink" and "soft drink" are way more popular in the NC. Maybe even popular enough to warrant a separate category. I think "soda" is more of a fallback choice for NC folks, because the term "soda fountain" is more common than the term "pop". Calling a non-coke beverage a "Coke" just seems silly though. I'm from CLT, but when I think of what I would expect to see on a menu if I'm looking for a coke, it's "soft drinks". Likewise, if someone comes over to my place, I might ask, "Can I get you a drink? I've got Sweet Tea and Cokes in the fridge." Though more commonly I would say "something to drink". I've heard that in other parts of the country though, "drink" only implies alchoholic beverages, which was very different from my experience. Now that I think about, maybe the reason we prefer "soft drink" is because sodas are usually grouped with sweet tea. And sweet tea really is the ultimate sweet, cold, drink of choice in NC. Though Coke or Sprite will do if a restaurant doesn't have any brewed and ready.
    • kodablah 9y ago
      > Calling a non-coke beverage a "Coke" just seems silly though. It's not. Would you force my nose to continue to run because you don't have the Kleenex brand? Or must I continue to bleed because you don't have a Band-Aid brand bandage?
      • kbutler 9y ago
        But coke is a flavor. Will you get me a coke? Sure, what kind? Sprite...
        • kodablah 9y ago
          So is Chapstick and others. You use context clues. If someone asks for a coke, they get a Coca-Cola (or are queried for an alternative if not available). But if one drank a Sprite in the morning and was asked what they drank, they might say coke.
          • kbutler 9y ago
• JPKab 9y ago
  A particularly interesting part of this map is the difference in accents between parts of the south which had plantations and slaves, and the parts of the south that didn't.
  • tyingq 9y ago
    I noticed greasy pronounced as "greezy" from some people with heavy southern drawls, but not all of them. I wonder if it's something like this driving the difference.
    • nisse72 9y ago
      Kiwis also say "greezy", how does that fit your theory?
      • tyingq 9y ago
        I have no theory...just questions, hence..."I wonder"
    • nrclark 9y ago
      interesting! In my California college town, greasy and greezy were both words that mean different things. 'Greasy' was burgers/fries/bike-chains, and 'greezy' was reserved for people like that 'uninvited back-rub guy'.
    • fnj 9y ago
      "Gaz" for gas/gasoline.
• dionidium 9y ago
  I'm from Missouri. I was 30 years old when somebody pointed out to me that I pronounce the e's and i's in pen, pin, and dentist identically (and that others don't). It really blew my mind that I had been doing something so obvious for so long without ever realizing it. What else about my speech (or, more scary, my morals) is so deeply ingrained that I don't even notice it? (Like the fish who asks, "What the hell is water?") https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/this-is-water https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/this-is-water
• mrcsparker 9y ago
  Are you from South Texas?
• patorjk 9y ago
  I was born in southwest and moved to the east coast as a teen. I spent 30 years pronouncing pen as "pin". Even when my wife pointed it out to me, I literally couldn't hear the difference at first. She had to slowly sound it out for me. It was weird to discover I'd been pronouncing it differently from other people.
  • KGIII 9y ago
    I spent my formative years in the South. I went to speech therapy to rid myself of my accent. One of the best exercises was learning to speak with different accents in different dialects. This has actually come in very handy.
    • koolba 9y ago
      Which do you pick as your default for new encounters?
      • KGIII 9y ago
        A tempered Bostonian. If it is formal, Broadcast English. If I'm out and about, I'll do a mild form of the regional accent, as appropriate. Off topic, but the missus gets a kick out of it. It's a valuable skill. I do a mean Down East accent, which is different than the rest of Maine. (I live here now.) With practice, you get an ear for the variations.
  • billforsternz 9y ago
    I am a New Zealander and apparently we also say pin when we mean pen. I thought the broad NZ accent wasn't something that I was really afflicted with, but in an airline lounge in Seoul I was disavowed of this notion when the English businessman whom I was trying to borrow a pen from couldn't understand why I would expect him to have a pin (or indeed how I proposed to fill out a form using one).
    • sborra 9y ago
      I once was working in a deli in Ireland and I got a customer who asked me for a rep (or was it a rap?). I was seriously puzzled until one of the people who was with her told me she wanted a Wrap and she was from New Zealand. Kiwi english is one of the most interesting english accents to me. It seems like you guys have undergone a whole new vowel shift.
• lallysingh 9y ago
  My wife pointed out how I pronounce valve. I was saying it similar to the lady part, while she said it with the A like in the nickname "Al"
  • splintercell 9y ago
    Which one of you is closer to this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxo5pyElIts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxo5pyElIts
    • lallysingh 9y ago
      Her. Mine sounds more like "V" - "ALL" - "VE".
• plus 9y ago
  My intuition is always to pronounce it "too-pull", because that follows the standard rules for how to pronounce vowels in words that are of English origin (which I will explain later). However, since it is related to the Latin suffix "plus", meaning "more" (see: quintuple), I make a conscious effort to pronounce it "tuppel" as in couple. To clarify what I mean by "of English origin", of course all of the words in English are inherited from some other language, be that Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, French, etc... I am specifically referring to words of Anglo-Saxon origin, which are not recent imports into the language. Here is my understanding on the unspoken rules (at least, they were never explicitly taught to me) for how to pronounce English words that you have never seen before. Isolated vowels are to be pronounced in their short form when followed by two sequential vowels, and their long form when followed by one consonant and one vowel. That is, "VCC" is short, and "VCV" is long. For example, "pick" is not pronounced the same as "pike", because the vowel sound in the middle differs, even though the terminal "e" in "pike" is silent. Similarly, "bite" and "bit" only differ in the vowel sound -- a terminal "VC" acts as a "VCC" (except when it doesn't, like "put" vs "putt"... I never said there weren't any exceptions). Incidentally, this is why words with terminal "VC" frequently double the consonant when adding suffixes ("beg" -> "begging", "bed" -> "bedding", "cram" -> "cramming"). An observant person would note that "tuple" in fact follows the "VCC" form. Words or word-parts that end in "le" are frequently to be pronounced as though it ends in "el". For example, take the word "apple". There is unambiguously a vowel sound that occurs between the "pp" and the "l", so it's pronounced more like "appel". In the case of "apple", there are two consonants after the "a" even if you do flip the "le" at the end, so the "a" is short regardless. But if we reverse the "le" in "tuple", we get "tupel", which does follow the "VCV" order, so it seems like it should be pronounced "too-pull". However, we typically follow different pronunciation rules for words of foreign origin, and since "tuple" is of Latin origin, we pronounce it "tuppel". Compare the pronunciation of "avi" in "behavior" (Anglo-Saxon) to "pavilion" (Latin). I am not a linguist in any sense, and so this is all my amateur reasoning about how English words are pronounced. When looking for Latin examples, I definitely ran into more exceptions than not, so take this all with a grain of salt.
• myroon5 9y ago
  This dataset seems easily manipulated: http://popvssoda.com/statistics/TOTAL.html http://popvssoda.com/statistics/TOTAL.html Some pretty funny responses coming in near the top.
• scruple 9y ago
  > "soda" vs "pop" vs "coke" On my Father's side, my grand parents, great grandparents, and great aunts and uncles called them "dopes." It's an Appalachian term. I haven't personally heard anyone use it in probably two decades, and I've never heard my father or any of his siblings say it, but it was common among those generations when they were still alive.
  • KGIII 9y ago
    Tennessee? That's also where it changes from we'uns and you'uns to y'all. Well, not so much anymore. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I made a bit of a study in accents, dialects, and colloquialisms.
    • scruple 9y ago
      Southwestern Pennsylvania, really, really close to the WV border. > That's also where it changes from we'uns and you'uns to y'all. In that area of Pennsylvania, as far up as Pittsburgh and maybe even beyond, it's yinz instead of you'uns or y'all.
      • KGIII 9y ago
        I'd never heard it that far north. Thanks. I'd only heard it in TN area.
• shagie 9y ago
  While traveling recently, I was in Billings was discussing with a bartender about the local dialect and where various boundaries of production were and pulled up this map. Both the pin / pen and the on / dawn / don differences between how I pronounced words and he she pronounced words were evident - it was rather interesting and being able to hear the difference. Btw, its a bubbler. http://shop.wisconsinhistory.org/productcart/pc/Bubbler-Magnet-p839.htm http://shop.wisconsinhistory.org/productcart/pc/Bubbler-Magn... and http://csumc.wisc.edu/wep/map.htm http://csumc.wisc.edu/wep/map.htm While listening to A Way With Words ( https://www.waywordradio.org https://www.waywordradio.org ) some time back I there was a woman calling in about a word (Pitch in) the caller didn't know and apparently everyone in the town knew. Turned out to be a local dialect word choice that the hosts were able to pin down to small pockets of townships in Indiana. The episode is https://www.waywordradio.org/regional-term-pitch-in/ https://www.waywordradio.org/regional-term-pitch-in/ I'll also toss in an older dialect survey with maps - http://dialect.redlog.net/maps.html http://dialect.redlog.net/maps.html