It's Called Soda

Dialect maps are fun. They're particularly interesting for American English, which has lots overlapping changes. The soda/pop/coke split is sharper than I would have imagined:

It's interesting to me that eastern Wisconsin and the St Louis area would be islands of soda in a sea of pop.

It Is Time We Remembered the Subjunctive

Geoffrey Pullum learned something new about the English language today. The idiomatic construction "it is time that noun verbed" is increasingly showing up in the vernacular as "it is time that noun verbs". This particular instance is new to me, too, but I don't exactly see why such a distinguished linguist is so surprised. "It is time that ____ were true" is just a variant of "would that ____ were true!" or "I wish that ____ were true!", which is to say, it's an introduction to a subjunctive clause, one expressing wish or possibility. Thing is, the subjunctive mood is disappearing all over the place, even in its most formulaic extances. "I wish I were ___" is sounding positively quaint these days. Part of me really wants to rail against this linguistic sloppiness, but I know there's no hope. I can shake my tophat and cane and glare disapprovingly through my monacle all I please, but linguistic prescriptivism gets us nowhere. Sadly.

English is Beautiful

On my long, slow drive back to post from Thanksgiving weekend with family, I happened across a striking pair of voices on NPR: a woman from the west of Scotland was interviewing a folk singer from Appalachian Kentucky (hopefully they will update with a podcast, I'd love to listen to the whole thing). I was struck by the contrasts between the two women's dialects, but I couldn't tell you which I'd like to listen to more. English is a beautiful language, and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Boat has Two Syllables

Unsurprisingly, this quiz has confirmed that I do in fact speak like a northerner, just like my sister. Unsettlingly to some, I've also picked up a few vocal habits typical of the South, particularly y'all, which I suppress pretty well at home, but tends to confuse southerners who hear me use it, since the rest of my speech is so thoroughly northern.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
The Midland
Philadelphia
The South
North Central
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Loving the Midwest

I've been home for just a couple days for Thanksgiving, and I've been greatly enjoying being back in the upper Midwest. I particularly appreciated this helpful sign posted on the door of the local Fleet Farm (sort of an agricultural Wal-Mart).

I'm almost happy I don't have any of my close buddies with me at Airborne, so at least this time I won't have to take the usual commentary on how much my accent has regressed northwards.