
The British-Irish Dialect Quiz - open-source-ux
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html
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jwbensley
"How do you refer to your mother?"

I say "mother", why is that not in the list of predefined answers!?!

"Which of these words (if any) would you use for a baby?"

Baby. I say "baby" to describe a baby. How is this also not in the list of
common answers!

I say many words for many things, e.g. I also say "sprog" for baby which was
one of the predefined answers. What I can't understand is why these predefined
answer sets don't contain the question word, do people really use (for
example) "baby" less frequently than "sprog" to refer to a baby so it wasn't
listed? Seems unlikely to me.

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empath75
Because they want to know what dialect you speak so it’s sort of pointless to
ask about words everyone uses.

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jwbensley
But "baby" (in this example) is the most common word I use. That is data too.
Perhaps there is a part of the country were "baby" is more commonly used than
anywhere else. Perhaps there is a part of the country where only "baby" is
used. Maybe there is somewhere were its scarcely used.

Admitedtly I don't have their data set but I do see it as valid data/an
answer. For example, they may have found that in one part of the country
(because you can submit your location at the end) everyone uses "baby" and
"sprog" and no others and that combination is unique to that area.

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noir_lord
They got it bang on for me.

I'm actually quite impressed because I don't have a particularly strong
regional accent, people find it hard to place me other than "Northern".

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mcjiggerlog
Same for me - people are surprised I'm from Liverpool as I don't have a strong
accent but this got it absolutely bang on.

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scj
I'm in North America, and one of the questions that struck me was naming a
running body of water smaller than a river.

My answer was based on the naming of bodies of water near where I grew up,
which originated from English settlers...

I'd be interested in seeing something similar that captures all areas where
English is spoken as a first language.

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davidw
Creeks and the like are an interesting one. Small valleys too: gully, gulch,
arroyo, hollow, etc...

[https://roaringbrookmaps.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/what-do-
yo...](https://roaringbrookmaps.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/what-do-you-call-
that-narrow-valley/)

Interesting to see the diversity in Oregon, Washington, and Utah.

~~~
vram22
Vale.

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mathieuh
Highlighted Belfast and Aberdeen for me, and I'm raised in Belfast; Scots
words are present in Hiberno- and Scottish-English so seems fair enough.

Nothing highlighted in the south, which makes sense I only lived in Herts
between the ages of 0 and 3. Although In this short time I did learn to
pronounce the vowels in words like 'shower' and 'power' with the /aʊ/ vowel,
whereas in Belfast it's pronounced with a /ɑː/ vowel, so they sound like
"Shar" and "parr".

Pretty impressive to be honest.

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thechao
This quiz located my Scots coworker to within a few miles of his home.

~~~
Marazan
Located Scots me South of Oxford. So not perfect.

~~~
MistahKoala
In fairness, it just mentions the most frequently disclosed location for other
respondents who answers similar to our own. It doesn't appear to do anything
predictive.

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CapitalistCartr
They think this Florida boy wasn't raised in Britain or Ireland.

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djhworld
After 25 questions it got it loosely right, but after 99 it was able to pin me
down to a very accurate degree around the East Midlands area (I'm from
Nottingham)

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levismenton
Also coming from Nottingham, I've always believed the area to have a slightly
non-descript dialect. Was surprised just how localised some of my choices
were.

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homecounties
I answered questions and regularly got a heatmap that put me in the
south/southwest(of London) which was reasonably accurate, but the final result
had a heatmap for Devon and Cornwall - and Lincoln? Bizzare.

I spent the first 10 years of my life in Swindon, then moved to Hampshire
until late teens - I have a strong Home Counties accent but for some reason
the test goes haywire for Cornish inflections.

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Twirrim
It didn't do too badly, mostly had me pegged, but some of my parental
influences skewed the answers as well. While my accent is about 100% Home
Counties, I have a number of phrases and words that I use that come from my
Northerner father. There's some more west country specific words from my early
childhood that came in, too, like "Daps" for trainers.

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Wildgoose
Narrowed me down to Yorkshire very accurately.

~~~
noir_lord
Aye, me too and our accent isn't noticeably Yorkshire, I suspect "bread cake"
would be enough on it's own though.

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jwdunne
Yeah, never heard of that. It's a barm for me.

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daledavies
What? Surely it's bap?

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jwdunne
Nope. It's a barm.

~~~
Wildgoose
In Barnsley it's a tea-cake, which to me is just wrong because tea-cakes have
currants. :-)

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andyjohnson0
Impressive. After 25 questions it identified the city I was born in and where
I spent the first eighteen years of my life. Despite having lived elsewhere
for over thirty years I obviously still have some of the accent I grew up
with.

I was also surprised to see this in a US-based site.

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KineticLensman
My heat map was red for the UK place I was brought up in AND the city I
currently live near (both in the south, about 70 miles apart). It also omitted
the northern city where I lived for eight years and never felt that I picked
up the accent. Nice.

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madaxe_again
Utter failure for me - but that’s likely because I have the “non-geographical”
RP accent, with a confusing mid-Atlantic twist.

Still, neat, and just learned a whole bunch of new words to play with.

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forinti
I lived in Cambridge for 5 years in the 1980s. My English must be skewed to
the American variety by now, but the result was quite accurate.

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forinti
Or should I say spot-on?

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Accacin
Pretty fun, round these parts we use a pretty specific word for a 'round piece
of bread' which narrowed my area down quite well.

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illwrks
Nice little thing. Got my hometown perfectly!

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phillc73
> Way off! Your answers don't fit here at all.

Which is probably about right, as I know my English is a right mess.

Grew up in Australia, lived in South East England for 13 years, shared a house
for five years with a bloke from Yorkshire, socialised through sport with a
load of Scots, my best friend lives in Ireland and I now live in Central
Europe.

Should I have answered the questions as I now use words or how I did
previously? E.g. I used to call the evening meal tea, but now refer to it as
dinner.

For sure, I know that I also moderate my language depending on social setting
and who is present.

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jwdunne
Only 70 miles out. Had me in Blackpool but I grew up and live in Irlam/Eccles
of Greater Manchester.

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koksik202
Limerick a boy da kid, perfect match

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secfirstmd
Highlighted Dublin for me. Spot on!

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frabbit
Narrowed me down perfectly.

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julian55
I went to school in Oxford and that's what it came up with.

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sys_64738
Identified which street I was brought up on!

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grkvlt
Yeah, seems like there are some questions that are incredibly specific at
localising. For me, it was the name for the metal cover for drains - I
answered 'stank' and it guessed Glasgow and immediate surrounding areas, which
is exactly right... I guess most areas have this sort of shibboleth - in fact,
that's basically what the term means I suppose!

