@cutiepi92 When I lived in Michigan I could know someone for a long time and then I would say a certain word and give away my northeast roots. If I said coffee, I mean cawfee, or my birthday Januaaary, the New York came out. LOL.
I never heard of or knew about sweet tea growing up in NY and MD. Sweet tea is definitely southern, although now that our country is full of national chain restaurants we see it popping up everywhere, because those restaurants free both. A few years ago I remember a 14 year old who had come along to the race track in Indiana with a friend of ours was pretty annoyed that there was no sweet tea offered in most restaurants.
Dropping the g just isn’t done in NY, not in Manhattan, except maybe for young people, and maybe some corners of the city that I am not around usually.
Good communication means using language that your audience understands. If people understand what you mean by buggy, then maybe you don’t need to change it, but switching over to cart isn’t that big of a deal is it if people don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with people figuring out you are from the south. Is there?
Since you have lived in both places you have the advantage of knowing both cultures, both dialect, you can do well in both places. Your world is broader than many people who only have spent a lot of time in one part of the country.
You might like this old Q of mine that has a long list of answers of what people in different regions of the country call different things. It’s one of my favorite Q’s of all time.