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.

The Atlantic

Published on Nov 25, 2013

Comments

4 Strategies for practicing Radical Self-Acceptance

Radical Self-Acceptance Painting by Jennifer Mazzucco #mindfulness #self-judgment #RadicalSelfAcceptance #negativethinkingpatterns #thoughts Radical acceptance involves acknowledging how life unfolds without resistance, even if we don't like things at any given moment. It can take effort to apply this principle. How can we begin to accept our situation and ourselves despite experiencing anxiety, uncertainty, and fear? Why self-acceptance is not the same as complacency. It is essential now, more than ever, to practice radical self-acceptance. This means training ourselves to find inner stability despite unpredictable external circumstances. Ultimately, we are responsible for acknowledging our hidden wounds, which can lead to personal and collective growth. Radical self-acceptance is the opposite of avoiding responsibility or giving up in self-defeat. It requires pushing against old ways of being to open the door to deep healing. Embracing radical self-acceptance allows us to int...

"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...

On its 40th anniversary, a look at how 'The Wiz' forever changed black culture

#TheWiz #DianaRoss #LenaHorne #MichaelJackson #QuincyJones #SidneyLumet #StephanieMills Forty years after its original release, no film has uniquely defined black culture and shaped the framework of a musical genre quite like “The Wiz.” An adaptation of the groundbreaking Broadway musical — itself a retelling of L. Frank Baum's classic 1900 children's fantasy “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” that became the beloved Judy Garland movie — the Sidney Lumet-directed film had a rapturous soundtrack produced by Quincy Jones, a cast that included Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne, Nipsey Russell, Mabel King and Richard Pryor and an aesthetic firmly rooted in black culture. For a generation of black Americans, this was the first time they saw people who spoke, sung and moved the way they did in a Broadway production and, later, a big-screen musical, and it has become a kind of rite of passage for the black community. Everyone remembers their first time experiencing “The Wiz.” I...

The five W’s of Life

#Anxiety #Fear #5W #Change #Choices #AfricanAmericantherapist #BlackMaleTherapist #Triple5Light.com The five W’s of Life Who you are is what makes you special. Do not change for anyone. What lies ahead will always be a mystery. Do not be afraid to explore. When life pushes you over, you push back harder. Where there are choices to make, make the one you won’t regret. Why things happen will never be certain. Take it in stride and move forward.

Triple5Light Therapy

Search This Blog