I don't know this has any interest at all for anyone but native U.S. speakers. On this website, you answer 25 questions about your use of vocabulary and pronunciation: "Do you pronounce 'cot' and 'caught' the same way or differently?" "Do you call the sweet stuff on top of a cake 'frosting' or 'icing' or both?"
It produces a shaded dialect map, showing the regions of the U.S. where the dialect is most similar and most different to yours. Along the way, it shows you the regional pattern for each of the questions you answered.
It is almost creepy how precisely it pinpoints the rather small zone of the U.S. where the dialect pattern is similar to mine.
What's interesting is the distinction between active and passive vocabulary. "What do you call the thing from which you might drink water in a school? Bubbler, water bubbler, drinking fountain, water fountain?" I would call them synonyms. They are all familiar. If someone says "bubbler" I don't think "Oh, they must be from Wisconsin." I'm not even sure I know what I say until I actually start to say it. Only then do I realize that "water fountain" is "what I say."
Yes, thank you for this link. It was extremely accurate in my case - the dialect in the middle of the country - Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
The test concluded I live between New York and Philadelphia. That's not surprising... since I got all the questions right! Soda is always soda, and a sub is a long sandwich.
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining? Sunshower
Since I am from Florida that is what we call it.
And that is funny, because when I was thinking about sneakers I thought of the phrase "little old ladies in sneakers." But now that you say "tennis shoe" I realize that the phrase is really "little old ladies in tennis shoes."
I also didn't realize that "feeder (road)" was so location specific.
