silliness

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 05:30 PM 4/18/2005, you wrote:
>on 4/18/05 2:46 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky at zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject:      silliness
> >
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--> -
> >
> > the blogthings site has a silly american dialect test --
> >
> > http://www.blogthings.com/amenglishdialecttest/
> >
> > -- to go along with Who's Your Inner European? and How Normal Are You?
> > and What Gender Is Your Brain? and similar quizzes.
> >
> > you get percentages for General American English, Yankee, Dixie, Upper
> > Midwestern, and Midwestern.  i'm 35-35-20-10-0.
> >
> > who makes these things up?
> >
> > arnold
> >
>And I'm 35, 30, 15, 10, and 10. I've never lived in New England but I'm
>allegedly 35% Yankee. I've never lived south of Washington DC, but I'm 35%
>Dixie. I was born in Ohio and lived there all of my  formative years, but
>I'm only 10% Midwestern. I lived in Michigan for three short years as an
>adult but not enough to be even 10% Upper Midwest. It's a nutty test.
>
>roger

I'm 70% General American (whatever that means), 15% Upper Midwest, 5%
Yankee, 5% Midwestern, and 0 Dixie.  So for me it came out fairly "right,"
if we assume GA and UM span "the North," as I think they do in the common
parlance.  (Born in Minnesota, spent the past 25 years in Ohio, with St.
Louis and Indiana U in between.)