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Yankee or Dixie?

Hit or Miss

Yankee or Dixie?

Growing up in Alabama, I always prided myself on the fact that I was born in Connecticut and not a “true Southerner.” I resisted picking up the accent, and then focused on cultivating the the region-free dialect of an actor while studying as a theatre-major in undergrad.

But it was all for naught. My inability to stifle “ya’ll” when addressing a crowd always gives me away. On the Yankee or Dixie quiz, I scored a “66% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!”

17 responses so far (Respond)

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If it makes you feel any better, I got the same score, and I can still count on my fingers the number of times I’ve set foot in the South.

Sparky | 20 Feb 2004
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I got “49% (Yankee). Barely into the Yankee category.”

Tin Man | 20 Feb 2004
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Also see the results of this dialect survey.

Tin Man | 20 Feb 2004
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I got “69% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!”, but I wasn’t even born in the US and have only lived in California!

Angelo | 20 Feb 2004
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68% here. And last time I checked Ohio and Illinois were tucked safely away in the north.

Matt | 20 Feb 2004
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62%.

There’s a wee little bit of cultural bias built directly into the test — creek bottoms, Halloween pranks and large outdoor bugs are all more rural things. And “y’all” leaked north years ago; it’s an incredibly useful pronoun.

The test also concentrates more on obvious regionalisms than on the actualities of dialect: the vowel in “pajamas” isn’t much of a determinant of a Southern drawl, it’s just easier to phrase as a multiple choice question.

Mike B | 20 Feb 2004
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I got “46% (Yankee). Barely into the Yankee category.”

Jeff | 20 Feb 2004
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I got the same as your Jeff… 49% Yankee. However, if I were to take this while at my Mom’s house in the Virginia mountains, and answer as though I were there, I’d probably score in the Dixie category, since I sometimes consciously re-adopt some of the Southernisms I lost when I moved to Massachusetts years ago and then to DC.

Odd, though, that my Yankee score wasn’t higher, since the results for most of my choices suggest Northeast, New York and Massachusetts, or at least the Great Lakes region.

Thom | 20 Feb 2004
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69% Dixie. And I tried so hard to be enculturated by my yankee parents…

jon collins | 21 Feb 2004
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Born and raised in California, living in France buys me an ambiguous 56% (Dixie).

Damelon Kimbrough | 21 Feb 2004
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“86% (Dixie). Did you have any Confederate ancestors?” (The answer: Yes, I did.) I’m a bit sorry I didn’t score higher, frankly. But I’m also skeptical of the accuracy of these results. I never heard the word “You’uns” until I moved to the two most recent places I’ve lived, both small, very rural, Tennessee towns. The quiz seems to think this phrase is just used in western Pennsylvania.

Chris | 21 Feb 2004
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63% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!

It sounds like we had parallel childhoods, Matt. And I was no better at not assimilating the ways of the South than you. I try to embrace it as best I can. I have a hope that it lends interest to my personality.

Jere | 21 Feb 2004
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50% Yankee. What would you really expect from me, a guy who was born and raised in Missouri?

Bob | 23 Feb 2004
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63% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!

Yeah, right on! Born and raised and living in Canada, and I gave typical Canadian
english responses to the quiz.

Ken | 24 Feb 2004
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The listed link to the Yankee Dixie quiz doesn’t work. Try http://www.sonicpling.net/misc/yankee-dixie-quiz.html

Clayton | 4 Mar 2004
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What happened to the “Yankee or Dixie” quiz? A day or so after initially taking it I tried to get back on the site to retake it and the site has disappeared. Does anyone know if the quiz is available on another site? By the way, I scored 65 (Dixie) after 40 years living in the northwest (not really yankee-land); my brother, who still lives in the south, made 84 (dixie)

Blake Ballard | 4 Mar 2004
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WOW…i knew i was born in the south (tennessee) but i didnt know it showed…lol i got 99% on this test. i always had people ask me where i was from , when i go out of town, and wondered why they always asked….now i guess i know

qhorse13 | 4 Mar 2004