Talk:American English regional vocabulary/Archive 1

Needs heavy editing or death

A lot of the phrases listed are common in areas that are much wider then those listed on the page. Grip, Cellar, Parlor, Shore, Soda, bookbag, pocketbook,clicker, till, and commode are all in common us through out the US. Plus In the New York Table the entry for wait/stand on line reads to wait or stand on line. Real hel;pful. This article is in need of some serious editing or should be put given a mercy kill. 65.125.163.221 11:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the best way to organize this, but for now I'm going to start off with a table for each region, with the regional word and its Standard English equivalent.

I'm also going to have to play a little fast and loose as to what constitutes a "region," but in all cases widely accepted terms should be used, e.g. "Delaware Valley" instead of "Philadelphia metropolitan area," which nobody says. Ambiguous terms like "Tri-state area" shouldn't be used for obvious reasons. Geographic descriptions are also good, e.g. "Northeastern Minnesota."

To start off with I think that everyday terms for describing regions are fine -- Midwest, South (Southeast and Southwest), Northeast, Midatlantic, Plains, West, and Pacific Northwest. These are just suggestions -- I haven't lived in most of these places, so I'm not sure how people who do live there refer to them. But I'm sure that as more people contribute their regional vocabulary words, a standard set of terms will emerge. (There's an article that references formal linguistic classifications in a "phonological atlas," but some of the terms used there would only be recognizable by linguists, and I'm hoping that this will be more of a general interest article. But here's the link anyway: [1].

I've started off by putting down a few words from the Delaware Valley where I grew up, and a few from the South, as I have come into contact with a lot of Southerners from school and at work.

I imagine that the tables could be expanded to include a column for subregions, like if a term is only used in a certain area of a region instead of throughout the entire region. And that's really all I can think of for now.

--Dablaze 21:35, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Eh...I'm not sure calling some stuff "Standard English" and ghettoizing other terms is the best way to do this. If was from somewhere that used hoagie universally, I would be unthrilled to be told it was not "Standard English." Maybe we should just include a variety of terms and label them with locations: Hoagie [location], grinder [location], gyro/hero (?), sub sandwich, etc. I just feel like right now this is kind of POV.

Good point. Perhaps "General Term" or "Common Term" would be better. I just used "Standard English" because it's, well, the standard term used by linguists.

As for "ghettoizing," I'm not sure what you mean. A word or phrase confined to a region is by its very nature analogous to the concept of a ghetto -- a unique subset of a larger entity.

Besides, that's the whole point of this article! To use your example, I grew up saying "hoagie," and it wasn't until I got to college that I discovered that everyone else said "sub" and had no idea what a hoagie was. I was definitely "unthrilled," but it was a reality that I couldn't ignore.

In any case, I don't think that the mere act of documenting these regional differences is pejorative or "ghettoizing." It's just a recognition that regional linguistic variations exist, and attempts to present them in an easily understandable format for the average speaker of American English.

--Dablaze 05:58, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see any strong reason why tables are needed or helpful here. I'd prefer to do without them; it makes adding and editing to the article much easier. Comments, thoughts? -- Infrogmation 06:39, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, Wiki tables aren't so bad! :-) Actually I think the tables really help readability, even if they're slightly more involved to edit. I can't imagine that a non-table format would be more reader-friendly, but if you can think of something, why not do a little mockup on this talk page? --Dablaze 00:46, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I wasn't making any blanket statement calling them bad in general, just stating my opinion that they seem unnecessary here. I'll do a mockup soon if that's what needed. -- Infrogmation 01:36, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Untabled version

Okay, I made a mockup version without tables at Regional vocabularies of American English/Temp. I find this much easier to edit. Other comments? -- Infrogmation 02:08, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the mockup. It does work, but I still think the tables look cleaner and are easier for readers to follow. I just don't think that the Wiki table markup is that inconvenient, especially since the tables are all standardized and only individual cells need to be inserted as needed. Am I missing something? --Dablaze 02:56, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

(BTW, I added the New Orleans vocab to the original page. Was that ready to go? --Dablaze 03:02, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC))

Yes, sure, the New Orleans stuff was ready to go, thanks for adding it to the main page. I added it to the Temp as that is just so much easier to edit :-) ...I like being able to have section edits and have sub-headers, though no doubt a version with both that and tables could be constructed. Anyway, it looks like we have one opinion prefering with tables and one opinion prefering without. Opinions and comments from anyone else? Cheers, -- Infrogmation 03:25, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Is it worth noting the difference between Northern and Southern Californians in the way they refer to freeways? For example, when naming U.S. Highway 101 in colloquial speech Southern Californians will say The 101 while Northern Californians just say 101. -- J3ff 07:37, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think that's more of a distinction between areas with large cities and those without. My theory is that large cities have named expressways, like "the Bishop Ford" or "the Eisenhower" in Chicago, which tends to cause numeric expressway designations to take a definate article also (e.g. "the 294" or "the 355"). In areas without a lot of named expressways, the highways tend to be called things like "Route 40" or "I-74" with no article, which leads to shortened names like "40" and "74". On the other hand, if I remember correctly, the Chicago suburbs have "53" (Illinois Route 53) also, so it's not a hard rule, but regional variation never is either. --12.214.237.110 08:50, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hotdish vs. Casserole

That bit about hotdish/casserole: Is that some small casserole? ISTR that Americans use 'entree' to mean 'main course'? or maybe it's one of those other words---appetiser, hors d'oeuvre. Felix the Cassowary 07:20, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hotdish is a type of casserole, although nobody in the upper midwest would ever think of calling a hotdish a casserole. That would be like calling a tattered rag a fine garment. Hotdishes are lip-smackingly delicious, but nobody thinks of them as fine dining. Think goulash without the peppers. Tomer^talk 10:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Texan

There should be some mention of Texan English. 11:05, 16 April 2005

This "article" is a mess of POV and OR

despite citations, some of the defining features of "Pacific Northwest" are not particularly "particular". For example, "pop" is used across much of the northern tier of states, as opposed to "soda" (which, in Wisconsin, for example, only has particular sway in the Milwaukee area). "high muckamuck" is, I believe, found throughout the US, as is its variant "muckity-muck". The assertion that "powwow" is somehow "northwestern" is particularly laughable, as it comes from Narrangansett. "Potlatch" is an interesting variant of "pot-luck" and deserves mention, as do a number of lumbering-related terms, including "timber tiger"...but not "second-growth". Cash registers are called "tills" throughout the US. The Delaware Valley is much better put together, as it actually concentrates on words that are used only rarely in the way they're used there, elsewhere. The "New Orleans" section has an interesting note about the use of "by", which is also mentioned in Yinglish, so it'd be interesting to see the source for the assertion that it's used the same way in NO English. The New York City Area asserts that "youse" finds its home in NYC, although I think youse'd be hard-put to find many people in NYC who actually say "youse". In "The South", we again have "tills" for "cash registers". "Yonder" is hardly a southernism, although that perception is understandable from movieland. Why is there no mention of the classic examples "croker-sack" (burlap bag, or, as we say in Wisconsin, a gunny sack) and "skeeter-hawk" (a dragonfly)? The Eastern Wisconsin "budge" is actually just wrong...although I have heard it, it's not common. Bubbler is Eastern Wisconsin, although it's also found elsewhere, and F.I.B. is found throughout Wisconsin, especially in high-tourism areas. I can't help but notice that the derogatory term for Minnesotans (mudpuppies) isn't mentioned. :-) Minnesota "hotdish" is used commonly throughout the northern upper midwest as a distinct (and rather unimaginative) type of "casserole". Again, nothing particularly "minnesotan" about "pop". The Twin Cities also, are referred to simply as "the Cities" throughout the upper Midwest. At "Maine and Northern New England", the claim is made that "fiddlehead" is a type of fern, when, in fact, it is not. As our article on fiddleheads indicates. (Where it also becomes clear that this article's assertion that they're a popular dish "in northern Maine" is made dubious...while they may be popular in northern Maine, from reading the article, it seems they're more popular in New Brunswick, Ontario and New York...and having eaten them here in Wisconsin, now they appear to be more popular here too...) Incidentally, I just took that fun little "What kind of American English do you speak?" quiz...I call it a "bubbler", other than that, I speak 75% General American, 20% Upper Midwestern and 5% Midwestern. Anyone know which words are considered which by that quiz? Tomer^talk 07:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's true this article is a mess of POV and OR. Unfortunately the same is true of a large number of articles relating to accents and dialects of English, as I lamented at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages#Original research/no cited sources in English dialect articles. --Angr (t·c) 08:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Potlatch is from Chinook Jargon from Nootka and is etymologically unrelated to potluck. Folk-etymological influence is possible I suppose, though I've never seen it suggested. --Angr (t·c) 11:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

New York coffee "regular" is WITH whole milk and an abundance of sugar!! Yes, and I'm going to change it. Geez.

Article Causes Identity Crisis! (Needs Sources)

Having lived in eastern Wisconsin all my life, I must confess that I had only heard of two of the seven phrases, neither of which I use. I think that this article needs sources. Benn Newman 23:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

As a clarification, I am not saying that they are wrong, just that they need sources. Benn Newman 14:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)