Advanced Rebel-Yankee Test

A forum for discussing US dialects (accents).
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Dr. Goodword
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Advanced Rebel-Yankee Test

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:26 pm

By popular demand: the new Advanced Rebel-Yakee Test is now available at

http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles ... anced.html

This one is based on comments and suggestions by all of you plus 2500 others who wrote in their impressions of the original test.
• The Good Dr. Goodword

skinem
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Postby skinem » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:49 pm

Thanks for your work and effort!
General Lee is still my Grandfather. Whew!
Last edited by skinem on Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby skinem » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:18 pm

PM sent, Doc. Didn't know if you'd see this post or the PM first...

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Postby Huny » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:31 pm

Umm..I only had one problem with this new test. Question #1. I put beach. The beach is where everyone where I grew up went when they went to the ocean to swim or surf. And seeing as how I grew up by the beach near Santa Barbara,I went often. The test said my answer was southern. Huh? I don't think so. However, there is a strip of beach near Vandenberg AFB that is called, by the locals, Surf. Not "the surf" just "Surf". But going out into the water there is banned do to bad undertow and some indangered wildlife, so it stays deserted. Other than that, I did about the same as on the last test. About 31% Rebel. I give my southern family that credit for teaching me the southern way of saying things from "the-git-go". 8)
Last edited by Huny on Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:00 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Postby skinem » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:48 pm

Hmmmm...well, Southern Cal...it makes sense now!

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Postby Bailey » Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:38 pm

A few notes on your new test:

my spouse packs for me...lol
oil is pronounced oy-yill this is the proper pronunciation, ay-yup! no option for this though
Water is WAter all one syllable this is how it's pronounced but you didn't give me the option.

how do you pronounce Monday? monday lol

I scored way down to 20% southern, down from ½ before, WHEW! My parents would be so proud.

mark

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Postby gailr » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:43 pm

I enjoyed the new test, but dithered a little between "rummage" and "get frustrated" on #9...

My score on the original test gave me a Yankee edge. But this time: "4% Dixie." (No wonder I can't get a decent glass of "plain iced tea" when I leave my allotted area.) :D
-gailr

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Postby Huny » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:01 pm

Hmmmm...well, Southern Cal...it makes sense now!
Thanks, that puts things into perspective for me now. :o Note to self: Some people can be so persnickety sometimes. :lol:
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

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Postby Huny » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:15 pm

I enjoyed the new test, but dithered a little between "rummage" and "get frustrated" on #9...

My score on the original test gave me a Yankee edge. But this time: "4% Dixie." (No wonder I can't get a decent glass of "plain iced tea" when I leave my allotted area.) :D
-gailr
I know what you mean! I will ask for unsweetend tea and the server will bring a glass of tea with artifical sweetener with it. Then the tea is so old and sour you can't drink. I drink mine plain with no sugar. I guess they don't get very many requests for that here in Dixie. The sweet tea they serve here is so sweet turns into "mountain dew" after about an hour after it's made. Yuck! :? It's like a level three bio-hazard.
Last edited by Huny on Tue Jul 18, 2006 5:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

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Postby sluggo » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:49 pm

Doctor, thanks so much for your concerted efforts on Phase 2 of what I hope will be innumerable phases of what brings so many of us here. And thanks for working in commentary from Phase 1. Such an endeavour can go on endlessly.

Now with that out of the way, the inevitable nitpicking. For some reason after scoring 50/50 first time befitting my halfbreed status (PA/MS), this time I went only 14% Dixie, and only 16% after putting in answers on some that should have really been NOTAs...

1) the resort along the ocean
I have to draw a distinction: It depends where you stand.
In eastern PA the ocean was accessible, but not nearby, so when you're 50 miles away you're going "down the shore" (you go without a preposition, thank you), but when it's 50 yards away it's the beach. "Shore" is a more geographical/topographical term, like going to the mountains (more at shoreline), so this word choice hangs on how abstract the object is.

5) How do you indicate you are ready to leave?
I didn't see C- systematically insult everyone in sight, ending with the host/hostess
*works great on discussion boards too! Alas, I'm not leaving yet...can you tell?

6) How do people in your area greet others?
A whole lot more could go here including the more reserved Hi/hello, (Good) morning, Where y'at? (pr. "Wayat"), and where I grew up, Whatta you lookin' at??.
I say Hey.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone that was not on a TV screen in an old movie or The Three Stooges actually say the words "How do you do".

number 8 (can't keep the format or I get an emoticon guy in sunglasses) I dunno, Doc- everybody I know in the North packs a suitcase...

12) one of my NOTAs- I ended up taking B (watter) just because I relearned the word but in SE PA and nearby parts of Delaware and MD, it's "wudder".

13) oil - definitely a NOTA. I grew up with, and still use, OY-yill. I change it about every 2500 miles in fact. But C (erl) is most definitely used in New Orléans.

14) great example of something
Don't know Corker but Doozies and Humdingers have both been passé as long as I can remember. Another NOTA. I find myself avoiding a noun altogether and using an adjective, unless I want to sound campy, at which point Humdinger can be pressed into service.

17) "Everyone in the North and West mows their lawn."
-apparently the good Doctor never met my PA next-door neighbors....

Enjoyed the test (again) and will pass on (the test, I mean). Thanks Doc!
Last edited by sluggo on Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby sluggo » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:55 pm

I will ask for unsweetend tea and the server will bring a glass of tea with artifical sweetener with it. Then the tea is so old and sour you can't drink. I drink mine plain with no surgar. I guess they don't get very many requests for that here in Dixie. The sweet tea they serve here is so sweet turns into "mountain dew" after about an hour after it's made. Yuck! :? It's like a level three bio-hazard.
Ewww!! They don't do that to me, I always order unsweet and do get -as far as I know- unadulterated tea. Then I put my own (controllable) amount of surgar in :wink:
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

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Postby skinem » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:57 pm

Ahhh...southern tea--nectar of the gods and not for those with weak constitutions nor with a history of diabetes in the family. You can tell a Yankee (anyone not from the South) visiting the south when they ask for tea specifying that it be iced. Everyone down here KNOWS that iced is the way it was meant to be served! And to specify "non-sweet" tea is to admit to a weakness in constitution if not character.

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Postby sluggo » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:02 pm

Ahhh...southern tea--nectar of the gods and not for those with weak constitutions nor with a history of diabetes in the family. You can tell a Yankee (anyone not from the South) visiting the south when they ask for tea specifying that it be iced. Everyone down here KNOWS that iced is the way it was meant to be served! And to specify "non-sweet" tea is to admit to a weakness in constitution if not character.
Naaah! It's a control issue. I like my cars with stick shifts too, for the selfsame reason. I'll go with character on this one.

Besides, a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, we all know 'way too much about surgar by now. I use honey in my coffee.
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Postby skinem » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:31 pm

Control? Don't you know it takes more faith to eat in a restaurant than it does to believe in God?
I, too, own only sticks, and drink non-sweetened tea--it's yet to be determined whether it's a character flaw or constitutional weakness--on both counts!

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Postby Stargzer » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:41 pm

I think I scored 49% Dixie on the first test but 70% ("Just under the Mason-Dixon Line") on this one, as befits a native Warshintonian (DC, not that big state in the Northwest US; NW is one of the four geographical sections of DC).

Trouble is, some of my pronuciations and expressions aren't on the test. For example, "Oil" I usually pronounce "oy-l," "Monday" is "Mun-dee," "water" is "waww-der" (first syllable rhymes with "Aww" as in "Aww, he fell in the waww-der!). The "d" will sometimes have more of a "t" sound to it. When I'm about to leave, "I gotta go" or "I gotta head out," but if I'm really running late, "I gotta get a move on."

Finally, I go to the beach, which usually means Ocean City, Maryland (the city that occupies Maryland's Atlantic shore), but native Baltimorons go "Downy Oshun." Many others in the area are more specific: they are " . . . goin' ta O.C for the weekend" (Ocean City) or " . . . to Dewey Beach" (Deleware), "Assateague" or "Virginia Beach" (both in Virginia) or to "Nag's Head" or surrounding parts of North Carolina's Atlantic shore, all depending on which area they prefer and how much travel time they have.
Regards//Larry

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