Skip to main content

Mapping How Americans Talk - Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke


#Coke #HarvardDialectSurvey #Pop #Soda

What's your general term for a sweetened carbonated beverage? What word or words do you use to address a group of two or more people? What do you call it when the rain falls while the sun is shining? Former Harvard professor Bert Vaux asked tens of thousands of people across the U.S. these questions and released the results as the 2003 Harvard Dialect Survey. The data are fascinating; they reveal patterns of migration, unexpected linguistic kinships between regions, and the awesome variety of words we say and how we say them. The study has wormed its way into popular consciousness and periodically morphs into a meme (just search "accent tag" on YouTube). Last summer, North Carolina State University graduate student Joshua Katz turned Vaux's geographical data into a set of stunning heat maps that went viral. For the video above, we called people across the country to ask them a few of Vaux's questions, then layered the answers with maps based on Katz's. You'll hear what Philadelphians call a group of people, the many ways of pronouncing "pecan," and what Southerners mean when they say "the devil is beating his wife." To delve deeper into the world of dialects, check out Vaux's original study, Katz's maps, and the Phonological Atlas of North American English. See also Deborah Fallows' writing on language across the country for the American Futures project. Thanks to FoBoGro and the Johnson Casket Company for their help.


Published on Nov 25, 2013

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Love is a combination of six ingredients: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust". Bell Hooks

#AfricanAmerican #BellHooks #Love #Respect  #WhereWeStand  #ClassMatters  "Love is a combination of six ingredients: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust". Bell Hooks A writer, teacher and cultural critic, bell hooks is best known for her work examining systems of domination, especially racism and patriarchy, and how they may be overcome. She has published more than twenty books, including  Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black; Killing Rage: Ending Racism , and  Where We Stand: Class Matters . hooks says that uncovering and naming the forms of oppression in our society is an extension of her lifelong curiosity about love and her desire to see love manifested. “Perhaps the most common false assumption about love is that it means we will not be challenged or changed,” she once wrote in the Buddhist magazine   Shambhala Sun . “When I write provocative social and cultural criticism that causes readers to stretch the...

Bell Hooks - To Truly Love

 #BellHooks #Love #Respect #trust  #Communication  #Triple5LightTherapy #BlackTherapist #Therapy

The Unique Benefits of Teletherapy.

#BlackTherapist #Teletherapy #Triple5LightTherapy.com #AfricanAmerican #Therapist  b y   Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Teletherapy is seen as an inferior alternative to in-person therapy. But while it has some drawbacks, online therapy has plenty of pluses, too. First the drawbacks: Some clients miss their therapist’s office, which they associate with safety and healing, said  Jodi Aman , LCSW, a psychotherapist in Rochester, N.Y. Technical difficulties—from poor internet connections to visibility issues–can interrupt sessions. Finding a private, quiet space at home can be challenging. Still, many people prefer teletherapy. As psychologist  Regine Galanti , Ph.D, pointed out, the biggest myth about teletherapy is that it’s “a plan B approach.” Many of Galanti’s clients have been doing online sessions for years. Her teen clients, in particular, like attending therapy in their own space. Teletherapy is also convenient. “[I]t removes time barriers for people to ...

Coping With Moods: The Challenge of the Turbulent Mind

#Mood #Impulses #selfregulate #selfsoothe  #Triple5LightTherapy #BlackMaleTherapist #Psychotherapy The power of moods and impulses can be overwhelming, but we can learn to self-regulate and self-soothe through awareness practices like meditation and mindfulness. By developing a healthy dialogue with our emotional nature, we can access deeper parts of ourselves and become more resilient in the face of stress and pressure. Rather than being swept away by our ever-shifting moods, we can learn to pause and reflect before acting. by Gillian McCann, Ph.D., and Gitte Bechsgaard, RP