When talking to several people, do you address them as “you guys”? “Y’all”? Just “you”? And is the carbonated soft drink “soda” or “pop?” Maps based on survey responses to questions like this were published in the Harvard Dialect Survey in 2003. Josh Katz took the data and produced extended visualizations and, last month, a short form “quiz” that allows individual users to take answer the survey and see their own personal dialect map. In contrast to the original word maps of the Harvard survey, which showed locations where certain words were used, the personal dialect map shows an individual which region of the U.S. he or she is closest to (and which region he or she it furthest from). The story, including links to the methodology (knn, smoothing) is here (you may have seen it).
