Pop or soda? Dialect Survey gives insight into regional differences
By Robert S. Boyd
Knight Ridder Newspapers
December 19, 2002
[Appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, The American News (Aberdeen, SD), Centre Daily Times (State College, PA), Columbus (GA) Ledger-Inquirer (Columbus, GA), The Detroit Free Press, The Grand Forks Herald (Grand Forks, ND), The Houston Chronicle, The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri), Macon Telegraph (Macon, GA), Miami Herald, Bradenton (FL) Herald, Contra Costa (CA) Times, The Mercury News (San Jose, CA), Monterey County Herald, Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, The Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN), The State (Columbia, SC), Sunday Des Moines Register, The Tallahassee Democrat (Tallahassee, FL), Walnut Creek Journal (Walnut Creek, CA), Wichita Eagle (Wichita, KS), Wilkes Barre Weekender (Wilkes Barre, PA), Wisconsin State Journal, and many other major newspapers.]
WASHINGTON - Do you call a soft drink a "soda," or "pop?" Do you say "you," "you guys" or "you all?" Does the word "poem" have one syllable or two? A bunch of students at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., are using the Internet to track the many ways Americans disagree about how to use or pronounce words. The project is called the Dialect Survey, and anyone with a computer can participate for free. So far, more than 9,000 people have contributed their own words, phrases and pronunciations. Since it's a voluntary survey, the results aren't scientific, but they provide a valuable insight into regional language differences, which stubbornly resist homogenization even in the age of near-universal television and radio.
    For example, 72 percent of those who responded pronounce the state of Florida as if it were spelled "floor-i-da." But 12 percent say "flah-ri-da," 8 percent "flaw-ri-da" and 5 percent "flow-ri-da." The rest switch back and forth. Some 55 percent of the respondents pronounce "Mary," "marry" and "merry" the same way. But 19 percent, mostly in the Northeast, say all three words differently. The rest use the same sound for any two of the words, but not for all three.
    Intriguingly, regional speech differences seem to be growing, not shrinking. "The dialects of New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas and Los Angeles are now more different from each other than they were 50 to 100 years ago," William Labov, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, reported at a conference on sound changes in the United States.
    To address more than one person in casual conversation, a surprising 42 percent of those answering the survey reported that they say "you guys," no doubt to the dismay of high school English teachers. Only 26 percent said they used the formally correct "you." "You all" was favored by 13 percent, and "y'all" by 12 percent. Less than 1 percent used "youse" or "you-uns."
    "We are not all the same, and what is considered bizarre in one part of the country might be the norm in another part of the country. In reality, every human speaks noticeably differently," said Bert Vaux, an associate professor of linguistics at Harvard and the director of the Dialect Survey. "Humans assume that they are normal and all normal people are like them," Vaux added. "Northeasterners, for example, insist that the word for shoes you wear to exercise is "sneakers' without realizing that this is an exclusively Northeastern expression." In fact, residents in some other areas use the term "sneakers," but they generally are from communities with lots of Northeastern transplants.
    Since different speech patterns are normal and natural, Vaux said, parents and teachers should relax when their charges use nonstandard language. "English teachers need to lighten up about the speech patterns of their students," Vaux said. "Students say "ain't' because the people they want to emulate use it, not because they are intellectually deficient."
    The various pronunciations of "Florida" reflect the origin of the speaker. "Coastal Floridians tend to come from the New York City area and as a result often show East Coast forms," Vaux said. "Inland Floridians, on the other hand, tend to pattern with the South."
    To name a nonalcoholic beverage, 54 percent of those who answered the Dialect Survey say "soda," 24 percent say "pop," 12 percent say "Coke" and 6 percent say "soft drink."
    For 76 percent of the respondents, the word for a long sandwich with cold cuts, cheese and lettuce is a "sub." Other choices are "hoagie" (7 percent), "hero" (6 percent), "grinder" (3 percent) and "poor boy" (2 percent).
    Here are some other samples from the Dialect Survey. Percentages may not add up to 100 because minor variations have been omitted:
Click here to see the nice graphic that accompanied the original article
Email rboyd(at)krwashington.com
To see the complete survey on the Web, with maps of regional differences, or to contribute your own words and pronunciations, go to: www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect.