The British-Irish Dialect Quiz

[canadagoose]

This is quite interesting. Well, I think it is, anyway.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html

What result did you get? I got this, which is... right, I guess?

[ToneLa]

I am pleased with the veracity of its assumption

[Twed]

Accurate:

[DrGreggles]

I am pleased with the veracity of its assumption

Pretty much the same as mine.

[Beagle 2]

I got a white space and a small black cross so I WERE REET BRASSED OFF

[MidnightShambler]

Pretty much the same as mine.

Same as mine but mine included Stoke-on Trent for some fucking reason. I think it was cos I only noticed you could choose more than one option at about question 15.

[canadagoose]

I got a white space and a small black cross so I WERE REET BRASSED OFF

Was this on mobile? It doesn't work very well on mobile for some reason.

[machotrouts]

It most fancied me as being raised somewhere around North West England, which is one of the correct answers – I was in Wigan until I was 7, and lived in Edinburgh thereafter. It didn't let me put two options in the "Let us know where you were raised" box at the end, so presumably the quiz isn't intended for international jetsetters like me.

Seems to me I've got English pronunciation with a Scottish vocabulary. So I absorb things like "get tae fuck" but I'd say it as "get to fuck". It's just a bit too polite coming from me. Sounds like I'm gentrifying profanity.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Pretty accurate for me too. It's interesting to see which words most strongly indicate where you grew up. In my case it was, along with a couple of others, the use of "mom" and "cob".

[greencalx]

It placed me around Milton Keynes, which is not part of the country I've spent much time in. But it does happen to be halfway between where my mum and dad came from, so I guess that makes sense.

[Bennett Brauer]

 
Right for me. Clinchers were probably tag and daps.

[Sebastian Cobb]

No mention of 'Torry Holiday' when asked to describe skiving.

I sit next to a more-or-less fluent in English French guy at work and he didn't believe me 'settee' was an actual word recently. Clearly moving in higher circles.

[BlodwynPig]

Despite not using Geordie words like Babby and so on, they still got me spot on.

[gib]

Accurate:

Same, although when i did the extra questions it moved me down to the south coast for some reason.

[Ferris]

Use of "cob" and "gambol" gave me away. You can take the man out of Birmingham...

[a duncandisorderly]

blackpool/leeds/lincoln triangle, which is reasonable given that I were born in bratford (that's how it's pronounced there), raised on teesside (on, not in), worked in liverpool for five years, spent a lot of time in manchester, & have worked in media in london for thirty years (around clients, but still saying 'master' & not 'marster' when they want their tapes), but reside part time in spain.
so the filing-off of various roughnesses & the slight southerly drift is understandable.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Use of "cob" and "gambol" gave me away. You can take the man out of Birmingham...

Yes, I didn't realise gambol meant anything other than a forward roll* until a mate who's lived here for 25 years, but is originally from Oldham, commented on it.

*cob

[Malcy]

Load of shite. If you have any understanding of British dialects you could answer the questions and get wherever you wanted.

NY Times. Says it all.

[Bazooka]

Use of "cob" and "gambol" gave me away. You can take the man out of Birmingham...

That seemed to be the only question allowing no multiple answers, I chose cob first trying to trick Skynet, but it went to the next query, I got Wolverhampton, never been, but linguistics stats were right, about being from the Midlands.

[ToneLa]

Should've had Bosted in it somewhere

[Twed]

Same, although when i did the extra questions it moved me down to the south coast for some reason.

Did you find yours oscillated wildly between having the entire country filled in and just occasionally showed the South East when you said something like plimsolls? I think the data considers us vaguely neutral and we don't have enough slang to be categorised confidently early on.

Load of shite. If you have any understanding of British dialects you could answer the questions and get wherever you wanted.

Yeah, a human could, but this is a machine doing it automatically with data. That's important because it's really scary when this stuff is possible. It could be used to profile people. Or for good, somehow, I guess.

[Dex Sawash]

"FORNS OUT"

[gib]

Did you find yours oscillated wildly between having the entire country filled in and just occasionally showed the South East when you said something like plimsolls? I think the data considers us vaguely neutral and we don't have enough slang to be categorised confidently early on.

Yes, very much so. But i was also surprised by quite a few outliers: apparently calling your evening meal 'tea' is for northerners and pronouncing he simple past tense of eat so it rhymes with get - "i ett my tea" is also something they do up there but not so much down here. (The question was how you say the word 'ate' but as far as i'm concerned the verb works like 'read/read').

[Small Man Big Horse]

It said I was London / Cambridge whereas I grew up in Surrey, but I've lived in both of those other places so I guess it's close enough.

[Twed]

Yes, very much so. But i was also surprised by quite a few outliers: apparently calling your evening meal 'tea' is for northerners and pronouncing he simple past tense of eat so it rhymes with get - "i ett my tea" is also something they do up there but not so much down here. (The question was how you say the word 'ate' but as far as i'm concerned the verb works like 'read/read').

Definitely "tea" for me. Equally surprised that would shift you north. "Ett" is a very East Anglian thing to say, I think. I've known people with heavy Ipswich accents to past-tensify a lot of words, a good example being "rood/rud" for having ridden somewhere on a bike. Very jarring for me to hear, even if I am from only 15-20 miles South of there (I put Colchester as my town at the end).

[buzby]

I am pleased with the veracity of its assumption

Pretty much the same as mine.

Ditto.

[Lordofthefiles]

Spot on, it narrowed it right down.
It would seem that my town is one of only two places that call "Tag" "Tiggy"!

Impressive.

[AliasTheCat]

Apparently there's not even a hint of East Devon in my dialect which seems odd given that I spent the first 18 years of my life there. Fortunately there wasn't a question that asked "how do you pronounce the word 'coat' when you're tired or not concentrating?" because that would have given me right away.

[gib]

Definitely "tea" for me. Equally surprised that would shift you north. "Ett" is a very East Anglian thing to say, I think. I've known people with heavy Ipswich accents to past-tensify a lot of words, a good example being "rood/rud" for having ridden somewhere on a bike. Very jarring for me to hear, even if I am from only 15-20 miles South of there (I put Colchester as my town at the end).

Just remembered another EA thing i still do from time to time and that's throwing in the word 'old' as a completely meaningless adjunct: https://youtu.be/UTVwdv9Pzo8?t=122

[Sebastian Cobb]

Definitely "tea" for me. Equally surprised that would shift you north. "Ett" is a very East Anglian thing to say, I think. I've known people with heavy Ipswich accents to past-tensify a lot of words, a good example being "rood/rud" for having ridden somewhere on a bike. Very jarring for me to hear, even if I am from only 15-20 miles South of there (I put Colchester as my town at the end).

A lot of this isn't simply regional though. Dinner/tea is definitely something that shifts class-wise.

Of course there's also massive complications with the north-south divide dialectically as well, with The Midlands being a sticking point where the East/West divide between servies to London and Manufacturing.