Speakers of American English! You can help do an actual science just by answering some questions on a topic practically everybody likes to talk about: What Is The Right Word for a Thing?
New online American English dialect survey http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=37429
@ksteimel
I don't know what that is but based on the name I'd guess it's probably full of people who already read Language Log which is where I got the link from. :) (I'd done the quiz the other day myself so I must've seen it somewhere else first but can't remember where...)
@hollyamory Yeah there's probably quite a bit of overlap.
https://linguistlist.org is where I work. We're kind of like a message board/forum for linguistics
@hollyamory What about Canadians? English doesn't stop at the 49th parallel.
@mpjgregoire
This is a survey on American English. There's also lots of linguistics done on Canadian English and if you want to take part I'm sure Google can help you find some way to do so.
@hollyamory Well I understand that you have to draw the lines somewhere. Even so, when it comes to spoken English, the border seems like an arbitrary place to do so. There's less difference between Buffalo and Kingston than between New Haven and Newark.
@hollyamory Oh sorry, I suppose I have nothing to say about English that a Minnesotan linguist doesn't know already.
@mpjgregoire
Heh, I'm still a student, but thank you. Yes arbitrary borders are arbittrary (I'm an immigrant so I know that too) but boundaries have to be drawn somewhere to keep people from drowning in data.
It doesn't mean no one is working on Canadian English by any means, or indeed comparing and contrasting them.
I'm serious that you could probably volunteer for some sociolinguistics if you'd like to.
This response (to my sharing that American dialect survey) is one of the most birdsite-ish things I've seen here. Made me laugh.
@hollyamory can I raise my fist and yell: get off our lawn with your hellbird antics!
@maloki
I know right? :)
@hollyamory I love these and I love that "feeder road" is used exclusively by everyone from where I'm from (Houston).
@futureghost
Some of the words are delightfully specific like that. :)
@hollyamory I love this! I worked at the Dictionary of American Regional English in undergrad and always hoped they'd be around long enough to start over (after it took them 40 years to put out all 6 volumes of the first edition 😫). Unfortunately, they closed down in October, but I'm still glad to see the mantle taken up elsewhere.
@beezyal
That sounds like such an interesting place to have worked. :)
@hollyamory
You could post that on the linguistlist too if you wanted