Places as close as eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island have different dialects at times. Then again, I think Rhode Island is an exception to just about everything.
But then, I think of "Yankee" as meaning "New England" EXCEPT for baseball.
"Yankee" is New England...except Rhode Island and Southern Connecticut since they're corrupted by their proximity to New Yawk. Though I'd tend to agree that Rhode Island exists in its own quasi-dimension. "Down East" is eastern Maine along the coast and that's a whole different thing out there.
New York, PA, and Jersey fall into another category altogether...call it Mid-Atlantic or something. Then you start getting into all that Southern stuff. "Y'all" and "Fixin'" are not words.
The point is, there's a different dialect in the Mid-Atlantic states, ie. PA, NY, NJ, MD, DE. That's the geographical region. Whatever that dialect is called, I can't tell you, but it's not Yankee. People generally pronounce their Rs down here. The Northeast has "Yankee", the South has "Dixie", and then there's those Midwestern folks.
Virginia is completely "Dixie". While it may fall in the geographical region, the dialect is Southern.
Except for Northern Virginia, which is much more like the mid-Atlantic region than it is like the rest of the state. But aside from that I agree with you.
From living in DE and NY, Knew friends from NJ, PA, and MD. There are a lot of different dialects in there. People in DE would think my parents talked funny since they came from NY. And my sister talks differently than me and my parents (having lived most of our lives in NY. So I wouldn't lump them all together. :)
I understand that. It could be said that a Boston accent is different than a Maine accent. I think the general point is that while the test is cool, it is incomplete when dealing with the varying dialects along the East coast. Not to mention a lack of any Southwest or West coast results. While there are many different dialects in our general geographical area, the broadness of the test precludes differentiating between a Philly accent and a New York accent, or a Boston accent for that matter.
Yarrghh! This is insane! "Y'all" or "All Y'all" are not English words. This conjunction does not exist in the English language. Show me a proper English dictionary with this bastardization of the language in it and I'll...burn the frellin' book because "Y'all" IS NOT A WORD
Most other bits of slang or colloquialisms are also not proper English. However, if you use frellin' in a sentence complaining about it, you have essentially invalidated the argument.
collacentaur
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But then, I think of "Yankee" as meaning "New England" EXCEPT for baseball.
New York, PA, and Jersey fall into another category altogether...call it Mid-Atlantic or something. Then you start getting into all that Southern stuff. "Y'all" and "Fixin'" are not words.
Virginia is completely "Dixie". While it may fall in the geographical region, the dialect is Southern.
http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/
Well, at least you probably won't give me crap about "wicked".
"Down East" is eastern Maine along the coast and that's a whole different thing out there.
Mainiacs - a descriptive as well as a collective term... *grin*
Most other bits of slang or colloquialisms are also not proper English. However, if you use frellin' in a sentence complaining about it, you have essentially invalidated the argument.