Where Y'all From?

I swear that my coworkers and I should have some sort of reality show, or at least a podcast of sorts, because we always talk about the most random things. Yesterday, while we were brainstorming about something, we started talking about what to get for lunch. My boss couldn't think of the word for a middle eastern dish made of dough that's wrapped up and fried. None of us could help her, either. Turns out the word was falafel (which we all should have known,) but that got us talking about different dialects and colloquialisms, because I brought up the word "hoagie."

I am from Pittsburgh, PA, which has some pretty unusual regionalisms. For the most part I have shed any of these weird phrases and words, but some still slip through every now and again. For instance, we refer to a submarine sandwich as a hoagie. My coworkers, who are from Long Island and Rhode Island (which is neither a road or an island- discuss) say sub and grinder, respectively. People from Pittsburgh also say "gumband" instead of "rubber band" and "sweeper" instead of "vacuum." There's also the issue of pop v. soda, but I am not even ready to start that war.

We then starting talking about how people pronounce certain words, depending on where they live in the country. Caitlin found this quiz on AlphaDictionary.com asking if you were a Rebel or a Yankee. We took the quiz and found most of the answers to be directly related to where we live or came from, but some of them were just odd. Check it out for yourself and see if you speak like other people in your area.

We also came across this other test from PBS.org which has the user listen to a clip of someone speak and then associate t hem with the right part of the country from which they came. We took this one, too, and only missed 4 in total. Try this quiz and see how you do!