i. Scarf jerks and sweater jerks are different jerks

January 3, 2014 6:31 AM

How well does this test of regional slang reveal where you’re from? Answer the questions below to find out.
posted by griphus (64 comments total)

I am noticing an upsurge in people I know via the Internet using "yinz." I either know a lot more people from Pennsylvania than I ever supposed or "yinz" is becoming A Thing somehow.
posted by Kitteh at 6:36 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I did the non-joke test and it seems I am from New York, Yonkers or Jersey City. Quite an interesting result for someone actually from North Lincolnshire.
posted by Decani at 6:37 AM on January 3, 2014

There is no option for "all y'all motherfuckers."
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:43 AM on January 3, 2014 [9 favorites]

I am evidently either from Pittsburgh or San Jose, even though I was raised in DC by Queens/LI parents.

Words ain't so location-specific as they used to be, y'all.
posted by headnsouth at 6:49 AM on January 3, 2014

This test says I'm from Liartown USA.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:52 AM on January 3, 2014 [5 favorites]

This is the devil's biscuits.
posted by bleep at 6:57 AM on January 3, 2014

I took the real quiz, too, and it identified my closest cities being exactly where I grew up, in spite of having not lived there for 20 years, and having picked up a lot of regionalisms from other areas I've lived in the meantime, and consciously losing some of my original slang (y'all, for instance.) Weird. So my results were the opposite of yours, headnsouth.
posted by MythMaker at 7:01 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Didn't we just do this?
posted by HuronBob at 7:02 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I also took the non-joke test and was surprised to find out that I am from Denver.
posted by jquinby at 7:04 AM on January 3, 2014

I've found that the best way to determine where someone is originally from is to spend about 10 minutes listening to them read a phone book... Then I check the Birth Certificate.

It works for everyone except Obama.
posted by HuronBob at 7:04 AM on January 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

(I am not from Denver, but spent my early youth in suburban Chicago and the greater part of my life in Atlanta...so perhaps Denver is some odd pastiche of both?)
posted by jquinby at 7:05 AM on January 3, 2014

I'm from the Pacific Northwest. We have no word for "sunshine."
posted by trunk muffins at 7:17 AM on January 3, 2014 [14 favorites]

Toronto is in Florida now?

/looks outside

HEY! That's not right!
posted by maudlin at 7:24 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

The answers to the the crawdad question seem to pile up syllables with d's, o's, i's and l's as if circling around a word but never landing on it.
posted by bdc34 at 7:31 AM on January 3, 2014

Didn't we just do this?
posted by HuronBob at 10:02 on January 3
[+] [!]


I'm not sure whether it's more entertaining to assume you didn't read the article or to assume you did.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:33 AM on January 3, 2014 [10 favorites]

The answers to the the crawdad question seem to pile up syllables with d's, o's, i's and l's as if circling around a word but never landing on it.

k. harmless tidepoolers
posted by griphus at 7:33 AM on January 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

If you feel like doing me a favor, I'd appreciate it if we could make "Satan's bracelets" for rubber bands actually happen. Thanks in advance.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:39 AM on January 3, 2014 [8 favorites]

I figured out this was fake when What do you call the insects that live in your closet and eat your sweaters? did not have MOTHERFUCKERS as an answer.
posted by bibliogrrl at 7:41 AM on January 3, 2014 [7 favorites]

I did the non-joke test and it seems I am from New York, Yonkers or Jersey City. Quite an interesting result for someone actually from North Lincolnshire.

The regional slang notwithstanding, the non-rhotic R used in the area is likely the common factor. (At any rate, that's what I got, even if I didn't move to NYC until late in life.)

Also, my US term for a sweetened carbonated beverage is "sparkling high-fructose corn syrup".
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:44 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you feel like doing me a favor, I'd appreciate it if we could make "Satan's bracelets" for rubber bands actually happen. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, I was a big fan of "Mjölnir went down to Georgia" for thundersnow so I'd be pretty grateful if we'd all start saying that.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:47 AM on January 3, 2014 [8 favorites]

"I'm not sure whether it's more entertaining to assume you didn't read the article or to assume you did."

That would be the former....
posted by HuronBob at 7:50 AM on January 3, 2014

Also, my US term for a sweetened carbonated beverage is "sparkling high-fructose corn syrup".

I am sad that you do not have Jarritos and Mexican Coca-Cola where you live.
posted by griphus at 7:51 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Right on the nose... Arlington, VA
posted by thebuddhaofdoubt at 7:58 AM on January 3, 2014

and Mexican Coca-Cola where you live

or kosher for Passover, with the yellow cap.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:58 AM on January 3, 2014

There is no option for "all y'all motherfuckers."

That's because there's no question that asks who needs Jesus.
posted by Diablevert at 8:02 AM on January 3, 2014 [5 favorites]

The Sunday review quiz that MythMaker linked to gave me three cities in New York as my closest match. New York! I was bred and born in the South, lived there for 24 years, and have never been/do not have any family from the Northeast, even. It made me wonder if how I say things and how I think I say them are entirely different.

I'd like to take the long-form quiz that was linked a while ago but I can't find it. Link, anyone?
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:04 AM on January 3, 2014

Hmm that's unfair! It was able to pinpoint where I live because we call the day-before Halloween Devil's Night and I call carbonated drinks pop.
posted by royalsong at 8:07 AM on January 3, 2014

nog nog



hurrs thurr
posted by threeants at 8:15 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

k. harmless tidepoolers

When I Magic-Marker an all-caps "YONKERS" over the address line in all my current ID and paperwork, as the regional-speech test suggests I ought, I'm also going to Magic-Marker in "K. Harmless Tidepoolers" as my new name.

K. Harmless Tidepoolers from Yonkers, pleased to meet you! You can call me K.
posted by Elsa at 8:16 AM on January 3, 2014 [4 favorites]

If you answered E to five or more questions you are from Tom Haverford's garage.
posted by cirrostratus at 8:16 AM on January 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well well, motherfuckers, it's a fine day here in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Fiddlin' Jesus is shining, my aren't just cleaned the closet out of fezziwigs and blood-yums, and I just went by the grog shop for a bottle of gnip gnop. Now I'll just put up my leg finishers and enjoy some mudbug gumbo.
posted by capricorn at 8:18 AM on January 3, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'd like to take the long-form quiz that was linked a while ago but I can't find it. Link, anyone?

It's linked in this post's New Yorker article, just under the map image.
posted by Elsa at 8:20 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I got Worcester, Mass.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:22 AM on January 3, 2014 [10 favorites]

I did enjoy how the article made fun of what I noticed in the original quiz that everything is "the Devil's this" and "Jesus's that".
posted by bleep at 8:40 AM on January 3, 2014

I'm a British person who speaks like I'm from NY, Buffalo or St. Paul. I have truly become Mid-Atlantic man. Oh dear.
posted by arcticseal at 8:45 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was born in Kentucky, lived in Georgia, Tennessee and Ohio until 3rd grade, when we moved to South Jersey until I was in 10th, at which point we moved to Kansas, and I've basically been in the midwest ever since (> 20 years)

My result: South Jersey. Overwhelmingly.
posted by phong3d at 8:47 AM on January 3, 2014

I did enjoy how the article made fun of what I noticed in the original quiz that everything is "the Devil's this" and "Jesus's that".

I have know at least one person who actually says "the devil is beating his wife," so now "Fiddlin' Jesus" is how I will exclusively refer to sunshine.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:53 AM on January 3, 2014

I got Worcester, MA too. But I'm actually FROM Worcester, and all y'all motherfuckers aren't (not according to your profiles, anyway). I thought it was some sort of IP-based geolocation thing, and am now thoroughly confused.
posted by xbonesgt at 8:55 AM on January 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

PS we really do say "gentleman's seltzer"
posted by xbonesgt at 8:58 AM on January 3, 2014

The non-joke test gave me Detroit, Madison, and Aurora IL. I have never been to any of those towns, ever, in my life. I grew up in Denver, raised by people from Iowa, and have spent the last 20ish years living in the Bay Area.

I call shenanigans.
posted by ambrosia at 8:59 AM on January 3, 2014

These "results" comments are jokes about how the threads under this kind of quiz always turn into 3000 variations on "oh hey it says I'm from Xville even though I live in Ymania," right. Irony gods preserve us if not
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:00 AM on January 3, 2014 [6 favorites]

I got Worcester as well even though I'm from San Jose, Honolulu and Yonkers.
posted by griphus at 9:01 AM on January 3, 2014 [4 favorites]

<set up>
What's a gentleman's seltzer?
</set up>
posted by RobotHero at 9:26 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just as I expected: Because I learned English from TV as a kid, it places me right around Springfield, Ohio which is right in the center of where General American English comes from.

(Nowhere near the bayou in northern Florida where I actually lived from age 5 on.)
posted by saulgoodman at 9:27 AM on January 3, 2014

PS we really do say "gentleman's seltzer"

I thought it was pronounced "Polar"?
posted by anthom at 9:28 AM on January 3, 2014

What's a gentleman's seltzer?

$20, Same As In Town!
posted by Navelgazer at 9:36 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm in Western Canada (Alberta, not BC) and I got coastal California, the most distinctive answers being 'firefly' (I've never seen one out here, though) and 'no such thing as a drive-through liquor store'. We say 'pop', 'you guys', 'sun' for sunshine, 'moths' for the bugs who eat your clothes (how is that not on there?) 'elastic bands' ('elastics' is too general, saying 'rubber bands' feels like a fun or childish version used for crafts). I'd like to hear from more Canadians!
posted by kitcat at 9:44 AM on January 3, 2014

What is this I was promised a quiz stupid quizzes are what the internet is FOR dammit.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:45 AM on January 3, 2014

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posted by griphus at 9:48 AM on January 3, 2014 [6 favorites]

What do you call the insects that live in your bed and suck your blood?

If you answered this "Nosferatus Junior," you are the late William Safire.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 9:54 AM on January 3, 2014 [6 favorites]

What is this I was promised a quiz stupid quizzes are what the internet is FOR dammit.

the comments in this thread are the quiz and most people failed
posted by elizardbits at 10:18 AM on January 3, 2014 [11 favorites]

Wait, I'm from Worcester, Massachusetts? I can't even pronounce Worcester!

Or spell Massachusetts without a spellchecker.
posted by Hamusutaa at 10:26 AM on January 3, 2014

It's pronounced "Less-ter."
posted by griphus at 10:27 AM on January 3, 2014

(That is, the real one placed me there. The parody put me in Massachusetts, like everyone else.)
posted by saulgoodman at 10:29 AM on January 3, 2014

Does this thread mean that there are people in last week's thread who didn't even take the test

I feel so betrayed
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:21 AM on January 3, 2014

But I have never lived in Minneapolis/Saint Paul or Salt Lake City, or Tacoma.
posted by Cranberry at 11:21 AM on January 3, 2014

These things just tell me what I already know: I sound like your typical, run-of-the-mill bastard from Southern California. Because I am.
posted by Redfield at 11:22 AM on January 3, 2014

Soda pop. That is all.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:23 AM on January 3, 2014

But I have never lived in Minneapolis/Saint Paul or Salt Lake City, or Tacoma.

Then you have never lived. Tacoma is the greatest place on earth to have been born, raised, and moved away from.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:41 AM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I thought the non-joke test was interesting for me because it said the place I was most likely from was Tampa (lived here about seven years now) but the place I was least likely from was Pittsburgh (I was born, raised and lived outside of Pittsburgh for 18+ years). So I guess I've acclimated completely to my current home and have shucked off my past.
posted by dearwassily at 12:47 PM on January 3, 2014

On the "real" test I got Irving, TX, Plano, TX and Baton Rouge, LA. I truly do not, at all, sounds like I am from these places, unless I am talking to my brother in Dallas and slip into his accent a bit. The reasoning they gave me was Baton Rouge for "y'all" and Irvine and Plano both for "blow-off class," which I believed and still believe is the general term for a class taken because it's an Easy A.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:26 PM on January 3, 2014

Am I the only one who got a plausible result? Not a correct result, mind you; but people are often surprised to learn I'm not from coastal California or New York City.
posted by a halcyon day at 3:30 PM on January 3, 2014

Mine were probably correct, if misleading, since I was an ESL learner who learned English mostly from T.V. (which favors the General American accent of the Midwest).

There was a little bit of Virginia and Kentucky in my results, too, probably from my grandparents' influence, though I'm not sure that's quite accurate. I think my grandfather's family lived in Alabama. But his father may have landed there from Virginia or elsewhere. Virginia kind of rings a bell, actually, but I don't know. I think it was dust bowl era, when all the farmers were suddenly forced to abandon their land and migrate due to soil exhaustion. Where were the Cherokee populations heaviest in those days? His mother was Cherokee, so that may be a clue.

Anyway. Over-sharing. Suck on it NSA.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:39 PM on January 3, 2014

I'd like to hear from more Canadians!

Ontario here. It seems to think I'm from 3 cities in the um, middle states somewhere (sorry, all the mostly-square ones look the same to me), for some bizarre reason. 2 of them were apparently from calling the road a highway. I could have picked equally-accurate alternative answers for several questions, though.

And what on earth is with the crayon question? I have never ever heard of people pronouncing it as "cran" or "crawn", and I'm failing to see any difference between "cray-awn" and "cray-ahn". Is the latter supposed to be pronounced like "cray-Ann" or something?
posted by randomnity at 1:55 PM on January 6, 2014