What does the way you speak say about where you’re from?

[AGDee]

In the Detroit area, we call them "Michigan lefts"- so when giving directions, we say "Make a Michigan left" which means they have to pass the intersection, go around the boulevard, come back the other way and actually turn RIGHT on the street they want to be on. I've seen a few jughandles, especially of type C, but never had a name for them. I like them MUCH better than traffic circles which I can never figure out. I'm always afraid I'm going to get stuck in the inner circle and keep going around and around, like in European Vacation. You have to drive very aggressively to get in the proper lane in a traffic circle around here.

The people I know who say "buggy" are in Kentucky and Georgia. My SIL also uses "buggy" and she grew up in Texas but has also lived in Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas so I don't know where she picked up the term.

Halloween Eve has been Devil's Night since I was a young child- before Detroit arsonists started setting massive fires on that night. Kids would write with soap on windows, knock on doors and run away, or TP (rolling- as used in some parts of the country) the yard as pranks that night. Once people started setting fires in Detroit, all of that other stuff stopped in the 'burbs. My kids never even asked to go out for Devil's Night. It was never a "thing" for them.

They are tennis shoes here. I rarely hear them called anything else.

Garage sales are more common than yard sales here- if it is a yard sale, it's because they don't have a garage. Rummage sale is sometimes used, but not that often. Those trucks are semis in this part of the world. You'll sometimes hear 18 wheeler, but it's usually a semi.

I answered crayfish, but in reality, I think we'd just call them crabs. I don't think that was an option though.

We've always called the strip between the sidewalk and the road the "boulevard" but that wasn't an option on the survery. The section of grass in the road a "median" but I sometimes hear it referred to as boulevard also.

[Sciencewoman]

Originally Posted by AGDee

We've always called the strip between the sidewalk and the road the "boulevard" but that wasn't an option on the survery. The section of grass in the road a "median" but I sometimes hear it referred to as boulevard also.

My interpretation has always been that a divided street with a strip of grass in the middle is a boulevard. The main street in my home town is this kind of road and it's named "_________ Blvd." We do call the grass in the middle the median. I have no word for the strip between the sidewalk and the road.

As far as "buggy" goes, that's an old-fashioned British style pram...a "baby buggy." Or, it's one of those old-fashioned little carriages, like in the musical Oklahoma.

[pinksequins]

Well, I'm stumped. Since it wasn't attending the yard sale of tractor trailers of crayfish while wearing tennis shoes, and since I don't use a buggy, I wonder how the test pegged me (other than the term "ya'll"). Maybe it was that the yard sale was held on a service road (with that grassy strip betwen the sidewalk and curb that is nameless?)

[pinksequins]

I did a Google search for "buggy linguistics" and encountered a great set of dialect maps. "Buggy" is definitely a Southern term. You find that "shopping cart", "grocery cart" and "buggy" are all used in much of the Carolinas. That helps explain why some people are familiar with "buggy" while others of us call them carts (and I confess to actually calling them grocery carts, but only in grocery stores).

[sigmagirl2000]

There are really words for the grass between sidewalk and road?

I thought that was just where dogs do their business. Who needs a word for this? Who talks about this grass?

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by sigmagirl2000

There are really words for the grass between sidewalk and road?

I thought that was just where dogs do their business. Who needs a word for this? Who talks about this grass?

Seconded! I had no idea there was a word for that. I didn't know there was a word for the grassy strip in between two highway roads either, but when I was in New Orleans I heard it called the neutral ground a lot.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by sigmagirl2000

There are really words for the grass between sidewalk and road?

I thought that was just where dogs do their business. Who needs a word for this? Who talks about this grass?

When our city replaced our roads (dug out completely, new concrete), they replaced the grass in that section because the process completely destroyed it. That's the only time I've ever really discussed that section of the grass...lol. Here, it is technically city property and the trees on that section are city trees, so if those trees fall and hit a car, the city is responsible. It could be useful to know what to call it in that circumstance!

[amIblue?]

Originally Posted by sigmagirl2000

There are really words for the grass between sidewalk and road?

I thought that was just where dogs do their business. Who needs a word for this? Who talks about this grass?

I have always called it....grass.

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by amIblue?

I have always called it....grass.

[Sciencewoman]

I'm feeling artistic, and shall compose a verse that pays homage to this neglected, nameless grass. I shall call my poem, Ode to the Strip of Grass Between the Sidewalk and the Road.

Oh! Lovely strip of grass that lies (or should it be lays?) between the sidewalk and the road, long have you been neglected.
Attended only by desperate dogs and city maintenance workers, you lie (or lay) unwatered and uncared for.
Left to burnish under the summer sun, until winter's snowplows gouge your delicate surface.
Who will give you the recognition you seek?
Who will name you and save you from obscurity?
Who cares?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Sciencewoman

I'm feeling artistic, and shall compose a verse that pays homage to this neglected, nameless grass. I shall call my poem, Ode to the Strip of Grass Between the Sidewalk and the Road.

Oh! Lovely strip of grass that lies (or should it be lays?) between the sidewalk and the road, long have you been neglected.
Attended only by desperate dogs and city maintenance workers, you lie (or lay) unwatered and uncared for.
Left to burnish under the summer sun, until winter's snowplows gouge your delicate surface.
Who will give you the recognition you seek?
Who will name you and save you from obscurity?
Who cares?

Ok, I just laughed out loud!

[pinksequins]

Priceless!

[NinjaPoodle]

lol

[TPA85]

My most similar cities were: Denver, Omaha, Lincoln.

Least similar: Yonkers, New York, Jersey City.

I've lived in Ohio my whole life and have never been to any of my "most similar" but have been to 2 of 3 "least similar".

ETA: when I re-did it with several different questions I got
MS: Des Moines, Lincoln, Omaha
LS: New York, Jersey City, Newark/Paterson

[amIblue?]

I got Birmingham, Montgomery, and Jackson, MS. I guess I speak deeper Southern than I thought.