American Dialects
I've lived my entire life in the American south. Comparatively speaking, my accent is not that strong compared to many of my neighbors but I don't fool myself. When I travel to other parts of the country, the folks there have no problem placing me. Many of my word choices and the way I pronounce them give me away. People around the country and English speakers around the world call many things by different names:
- The long thing in the living room that you sit on
- Sweetened carbonated beverages
- The thing at the grocery store where you put the items you plan to buy
- Divided, limited access roads
There are numerous dialect quizzes that purport to be able to tell you where you're from. The best and most accurate is from the new York Times, but it is sadly behind their paywall. I'll include it anyway in case you have access.
One thing I learned years ago when traveling to the UK was that they know how to understand American English quite well from watching our TV shows and movies. I was all caught up with British vocabulary words like lorry, biscuit, loo, and crisps only to be laughed at when I tried to use them.
One more thing - the worst Southern accent in any movie was Jude Law in Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil.
The U.S. Dialect Quiz: How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
This U.S. Dialect Quiz Can Guess Exactly Where You Live BuzzFeed https://www.buzzfeed.com › andrewziegler › dialect-quiz