Everyone knows Americans don’t agree on pronunciations.
That’s great, because regional accents and dialects are a major part of why American English is so interesting.
Josh Katz, a former Ph.D. student of statistics at North Carolina State University, published a group of awesome visualizations of Professor Bert Vaux and Scott Golder’s linguistic survey, which looked at differences in American dialects (via detsl on /r/Linguistics).
His results were first published on The Abstract, the NC State University research blog. The complete set of Katz’s maps, updated with the results from more than 350,000 new survey responses, are compiled in the new book “Speaking American,” publishing October 25 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Katz gave Business Insider permission to publish some of the coolest maps from his collection.
This is an update of a post originally published by Walter Hickey.
The pronunciation of "caramel" starts disregarding vowels once you go west of the Ohio River.
Residents farther north have an oddly Canadian way of pronouncing "been."
For whatever reason, it's a "boo-wie" knife in Texas and D.C.*
UPDATE: Enthusiastic Marylanders have alerted us that there is indeed a town in Maryland called Bowie and pronounced "Boo-wie." That solves that. No word yet from Texans.
UPDATE 2: From a Texan: "It's pronounced Boo-wie because it's named after Jim Bowie (pronounced Boo-wie), who played a major role in the Texas revolution. That explains why we're the only ones who pronounce it correctly."
Americans can't even agree on how to pronounce crayon.
The South is the only place where you'll try to call your "law-yer" instead of your "loyer."
The South is also really into slaw. The North and West call it coleslaw.
Addressing a group of people is the deepest and most obvious linguistic divide in America. It's also an example of how people in southern Florida pronounce things in the northern US style.
We are a nation divided over mayonnaise.
Some of the deepest schisms in America are over the pronunciation of the second syllable of "pajamas."
Everyone pronounces "pecan pie" differently.
The Midwest calls carbonated soft drinks "pop," the Northeast and the West Coast call them "soda," and the South is really into brand loyalty.
Tiny lobsters are tearing this country apart.
So are traffic circles.
People in the Northeast Corridor put "sear-up" on their pancakes.
Philadelphia is just making it up as it goes along.
Let's ignore the East Coast/West Coast split and notice that Wisconsin and Rhode Island call a water fountain a "bubbler."
The Northeast (along with South Florida) puts on sneakers. Everyone else finds a pair of tennis shoes.
The West Coast is really into its freeways.
Seriously? Alabama and Mississippi: That is terrible.
Most of America realizes that New York really is "the City."
These exist?!
Massachusetts, Long Island, and Jersey in particular hear a difference between Merry, Mary, and marry.
