A fun little quiz circulated on BlueSky yesterday evening, a quiz that maps one’s dialect to a specific region of the United States.
My results were not surprising!
I talk like someone from Maryland, with about 54% of my answers to this 60 question quiz being consistant with a Marylander. I was born in Baltimore, lived in Maryland for a decade, and worked in Maryland for almost twenty years, that seems accurate. But the fact that 46% of my answers were not Maryland shows that I have other influences.
Like New Mexico! I’m not sure how or why I speak like someone from Albuquerque, as I’ve never been there, nor have I ever taken a wrong left turn somewhere near there.
My other heat area makes more sense — the Tidewater region of Virginia and North Carolina. I went to college there (Richmond), I worked there after college (Raleigh).
I’m intrigued that two of my top three cities are Charlotte and Washington. Both are slightly less warm, but that feels consistent.
I police my accent, and over the years I’ve found myself picking up Maryland vowel shifts that I do not like, which I stamp out like the Spanish Inquisition. I said “Worshington” one day, and I was like, “What the fuck did my mouth just do?”
My friends, that vowel shift died a painful death in a fire.
All but the three years of my Chicago life are in the three darkest shades of red. Where I live in Pennsylvania, and have for over a decade, is two steps down from the darkest red, which intrigues me. It’s like I’m steadfastly refusing to pick up the local pronunciation.
It’s interesting. I always think of myself as having a flat accent that says no place in particular, and yet, this little quiz managed to locate me fairly well.
This is me, a few days later.
A friend shared the link to the full quiz on Facebook — I’d taken the shorter test on my phone — and I decided, “Why not?”
A few differences in the map. New Mexico, out! South Texas, in! More dark red between the Mason-Dixon Line and the border between the two Carolinas.
The full text bumped my Maryland-ness up to 55%, and my top three cities were, in order, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, all at 53%.
In short, I sound like someone from the Chesapeake Bay region, and as someone who was born and has lived in the Chesapeake Bay basin for a lot of his life, that sounds accurate.
Or, as I’ve sometimes thought of it, I’ve lived and worked within about an hour of I-95 between Philly and Raleigh (which isn’t on 95 but is less than an hour), the last thirty years.
I still think I sound like no place in particular, which is true of I-95. I’ve been in enough hours-long traffic jams to know that it’s not a place so much as it’s a state of mind.
That sums it up, really.