Josh Katz’s Dialect Quiz Show
In 2013, Josh Katzcreated a wildly popular dialect quiz for “The New York Times” that attracted over 350,000 participants. Using that data, he’s written an engrossing new book, “Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk,” that maps out visually who says what where. How do you pronounce pecan? Do you sell your old vinyl records at a yard sale, garage sale, tag sale, rummage sale, or stoop sale? Do you drive in circles around a roundabout, a traffic circle, or a rotary? With just a few questions like these, Josh can pinpoint where you grew up.
To test his expertise — and that of his computer algorithm — we invited a motley crew of New York Public Radio staffers into the studio for a special game show segment. They’ve lived in New York long enough to have mostly lost their accents, but they’ve retained some telltale regionalisms might be the key to their origins. Can Josh really guess where they’re from?
The story you just read is available for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
Make a gift today, and you’ll get us one step closer to our goal of raising $25,000 by June 14. We need your help now more than ever!