Linguistic boundaries [was: A novel notion of "balance"]

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 10:56 PM, Alice Faber wrote:
> On 1/12/14 9:54 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > On Jan 12, 2014, at 8:07 PM, Alice Faber wrote:
> >>
> >> As for the Red Sox-Yankees boundary, I would say it's shifted east in
> >> the past decade. This isn't just due to the Red Sox' recent success
> >> (though that contributed); the addition of Red Sox broadcasts to cable
> >> systems in the New Haven area makes it much easier to follow the Sox
> >> these days.
> >
> > Alice--you do mean the boundary has shifted west, right?  Or maybe New
> > Haven County has shifted east?  Either way I agree, and I think both radio
> > (especially for baseball) and football (especially for TV) has played a major
> > role in establishing the relevant isofans.
>
> Yep...the other east. Towards the Pacific.

For some big-data analysis of the Red Sox-Yankees boundary through CT, see:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443324404577593533930872376
http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/finding-the-true-border-between-yankee-and-red-sox-nation-using-facebook-data/

That's based on professed allegiance on Facebook, providing a much
bigger dataset than the "driving around and asking strangers" method
employed a few years before that by the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/sports/baseball/18fans.html

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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