Canadian piping in here; pop, fireflies, either half an hour or half hour, sprinkles.

Wisconsen’r
soda
fire fly
I will be there in half an hour but some thing is a half hour long
sprinkles
bubbler

Ohio.. It changes where you go, but around me it’s pop, lightning bug, either way for expressing 30 minutes, and sprinkles.. I’ve actually never heard of “Jimmies”

I always said “soda pop” although I’ve been known to say “soda” on its own, but never “pop.” :)

I was shocked that the term “jimmies” was still in popular use when I moved to Massachusetts – I’d always been taught that it’s an antiquated and racist term! (“Jimmies” only refers to chocolate sprinkles, any other color sprinkles are “red sprinkles” or “rainbow sprinkles…” and then the brown ones are “jimmies…” People who use the term always get offended when you mention it’s kind of racist. I don’t like to argue the point, because even if it isn’t racist it’s still weird!)

@dazedandconfused – I had never heard of that either until I met my wife. It makes no sense to me. I would like to hear the story if someone knows.

@Bri_L – Me too, though I’ve lived in New York City for 15 years. I still have to stop myself from saying bubbler when I mean water fountain. You can take the gal out of Milwaukee…

Chicago girl, here:

Soda
Fire fly
Half hour
Jimmies (if they’re the long ones. Sprinkles if they are the little Nonpareils.)

I also say “Frunchroom” for the room in the front of the house (the Living room for the rest of you).
Oh yeah. And every highway, toll road, and interstate is the “expressway”. Sorry, I can’t help it.

@fireinthepriory @dazedandconfused I think Jimmie is a brand name, like how we use Kleenex for tissues…I think? I also, from what I understand, you can use it for colored sprinkles not just chocolate ones. Think it is used just in New England, maybe someone who lives up there will chime in.

@aprilsimnel @Bri_L I knew bubbler would come, I think that one is unique to the state of Wisconsin.

I hate when people use coke for all soda/pop, that bothers me. Pepsi is not coke.

@Les Never heard of Frunchroom, do you know where that term comes from originally?

@JLeslie : It comes from the fact that the room is in the “front”. We Chicagoans are known for our slurring of words. “Frunchroom” is just a lazy, slurred “Front-room”.

@Les That is funny to me. The give away that someone is from Chicago for me is that they ask ” do you want to come with?” Instead of “come with ME?” Although, I think other parts of the midwest do use it.

L.A. girl here.

Soda
Firefly (though I have never seen one and have little
occassion to say it)
Half an hour
Sprinkles (Jimmys? That’s
weird.)

As far as regional sayings: chonclas (sandals), chonies (underwear), but this might just be the Spanish speaking (or the children of Spanish speakers) who use these terms.

@JLeslie: You have my name. Two Leslies. Actually, there are three on Fluther that I know of. Crazy. And spelled the same way. Wow.
We can also be identified by our harsh vowels. It’s not “saw-sage” it’s “saa-sage”. And it’s not “Chi-caw-go”, it’s “Chi-caa-go”. Although, I personally don’t subscribe to either of those. I try to say them properly. ;-)

michigan
pop,
lightening bug
half an hour
sprinkles

@Les Are you a man or a woman? My mother wanted Leslie, but my father won, so my name is actually Jennifer, middle name Leslie. Jennifer became number one the year I was born, always bunches of Jennifer’s in my class and in crowds, so my mom used to call me JLeslie in public areas. Jennifer was already taken on Fluther, no surprise.

@magneto Interesting, the first time I heard half hour was in MI. And you say up north instead of upstate :) I went to state—go green!

@JLeslie : I’m a girl. I think I was supposed to be either Laura or Leslie. Leslie won. And my parents liked the boy’s spelling better than “Lesley”. Me, too.

@Les I didnt know Lesley is the girl’s spelling? My mom just thinks Leslie is the correct spelling, she has a thing about that. Karen is Karen not Caryn, Jennifer with two n’s, she doesn’t like “new” spellings for names. My mom wanted Shannon for my sister, she lost that one too, my poor mom.

Philadelphia..

Soda
Lightening Bug
I actually say both, but Half an Hour is usually the preference.
I saw both Jimmies and Sprinkles. Sprinkles at Rita’s but usually Jimmie’s if its a place in Philly.

My family in Michigan call it “Pop” and call Hoagies…“Subs” we totally mess with my cousins when they come visit and make them order at hoagie shops, and people never know what the hell they’re talking about. Oh, and we get them to eat Scrapple.

General question:
Isn’t there a supposed regional distribution of “soda” and “pop”? Aren’t midwesterners supossed to say it one way, etc.?

@Les I believe it’s a midwestern and southern thing…I don’t consider Chicago midwest though, but I know Michigan calls it “pop”

@casheroo : Chicago isn’t midwest? So the south and midwest say “pop” supposedly?

Mostly the midwest uses pop, how can you say Chicago is not the midwest? The southern cities I’ve lived in all use Soda or coke.

@Les @JLeslie Most Chicagoans call it soda, in my experience. So I don’t associate it as the midwest.
Here’s a weird site, not sure if it’s accurate.. http://popvssoda.com:2998/

@casheroo: Nice link. ;-) That’s hilarious.

California here..

Soda
Firefly
Half an hour or a half hour
Sprinkles

soda (some people in the USA SE use “coke” as the generic, some in New England use “tonic”), lightning bug, half an hour, sprinkles (some people in New England call them “worms”).

How about “elastics”? (in New England; called “rubber bands” in most places, “gum bands” in Pittsburgh)?
“bubbler” (in Rhode Island; called “water fountain” in most places, “scuttlebutt” in the Navy)?

“clam cakes” in New England, “clam fritters” elsewhere

“cabinet” in RI (frappe in most of the rest of New England, milk shake in most other places); don’t ask for a milk shake in RI, outside of a chain restaurant, because you’ll just get milk and syrup beaten together in a blender, no ice cream.

Yes, i did spend my first 30 years in RI—how did you guess?<grin>

Orlando Here,

Soda
Lightning Bug
Half an Hour
Sprinkles

@JLeslie : Pennsylvanianese: “That needs done” instead of That needs to be done or That needs to get done or That needs doing.

never even heard of Jimmies
pop
lightning bugs or fireflies
half hour or half an hour
from Michigan

@Les : i say “SAW-s’j”, but “sh’-KAH-goh” (which i was taught by my wife, who went to college there and taught there, is the native pronunciation, but maybe folks there were just having a little fun with a sweet li’l South Ca’lina gal).

@casheroo : other names for hoagies, please others chime in on where these are local—
grinders
torpedos
submarines

i think grinders was local in New England until about 20 years ago.

@JLeslie : “bubblers” in Wisconsin? hooda thunkit?

Sarah Palin sounds to me just like the “Norwegian bachelor farmers” in Minnesota that Garrison Keillor is always imitating.

In NC they would say “might could” still not 100% sure what that means. And, in all parts of the south I think they say, “fixing to” instead of “planning to.”

@tinyfaery we use Chonclas in my house to, and chochitos for sprinkles (so I use sprinkles when using the English, but between my husband and me it is always chochitos) Makes sense choncla might be common usage in L.A. It’s like NY uses tons of yiddish like it is English, maybe it has been adopted into English?

@LexWordsmith Hero’s. Another word for Subs is Hero’s.

@LexWordsmith : Yeah, that is the native pronunciation of “chicago”, unfortunately. I hate that harsh “a”, though, so I try not to say it like that. I do pretty well here in Wyoming, because I’m not surrounded by that sound. But whenever I go home, I have been known to let it slip every now and then. :-/

@JLeslie : “might could” means “might be able to:, “might coulda” means “might have been able to”. a previous discussion on a similar topic (which i thought of as “deponent verbs in English”) led to a Wikipedia page about “defective verbs in English”.

ever notice that “have been to” (“visited, but since left”) has no present or future forms, or simple past? just perfect, past perfect, and perfect infinitive.

As a Chicago area native I grew up with:

Pop—for me, “soda” always meant “ice cream soda”
Light’ning bugs
I’ll be there for half an hour, but it is a half-hour event
Sprinkles

@JLeslie : i think that “Hero” in that context is a corruption of “gyro”.

Then there are things like next Saturday and next Saturday. Half the country thinks it is in two days, and the other half thinks it is a week from this coming Saturday. Logically it is this weekend. I use “this coming” or “a week from,” never “next” to describe a day. Better to just use the date and be clear.

@JLeslie : thanks for asking this question—i really enjoyed the discussion (and am still enjoying it, and am fixin’ to enjoy it some more!).

@LexWordsmith that makes perfect sense. Never thought of that before. About the gyro hero thingy.

I think the way locals pronounce town names is funny, too. For example, there’s a town here in WY, Dubois. But we pronounce it “Doo-boys”, with the emphasis on the first syllable. It sends shivers down my spine everytime I hear it.

@Les another good point. Like Houston (hue-ston) TX and Houston (How-ston) St. in NY? Oh, there are a lot of those.

@Les I have found out that the proper way to pronounce any locality is the way the locals pronounce it.

For example: Buena Vista CA is pronounced “BWAY-na VIS-ta”. There is also a Buena Vista CO, which the locals pronounce as “BYOO-na VIS-ta”.

Go figure…

There’s a street in Chicago called “Goethe”. Pronounced “Go-thee”. I really am tempted to ask a cabbie to take me to “Gur-tah” street.

How about the time? 10 til 11:00, or half past 6:00? I can’t tell you how many people are not sure what I am talking about with either of these.

in New England, i remember always hearing “this weekend” for the one coming and “next weekend” for the one after that, but when i got down here to DC that confused people (who say “pin” for “pen’—that’s so ugly!), so i had to change. and i lost my RI accent, which is quite distinctive—i can only “do” it now, and i’m no longer absolutely sure it’s right when i do it.

in grad school in RI, we had a young woman from Georgia who could “do” a New England accent—it was so funny to hear that coming out of her mouth instead of her native Southern drawl. She taught me that “y’all” has a possessive: “so the x-axis is running horizontally, and the y-axis is running vertically, and the z-axis is coming out of the board in y’all’s direction”, she would tell her students in a voice like syrup.

i think (from consorting with South Ca’linians) that “y’all” is always plural, but some other Southerners [ heretic and utterly lost ] seem to think that it can be singular (foreshadowing of the obesity epidemic”?) and that you have to say “all y’all” to make sure that people understand a plural sense.

@LexWordsmith I’m from DC and I get annoyed in Memphis that they say pin for pen—that’s weird. Next weekend IS this coming weekend logically. If I said to you, “when is the next showing of Wicked at the Fox theatre,” and it is this coming weekend, wouldn’t that be the next one?

That analysis of y’all was brilliant lol!

“BURR-lin” NH (not “bur-LYNN”)
“KAY-roh” and “LYE-muh” out in the Midwest, vice “KYE-roh” and “LEE-muh”
“KWINN-zee” and “LEH-min-stuh” and “WUH-stuh” in MA (Quincy, Leominster, Worcester)

@JLeslie I’ve never had a problem with people understanding what I mean by “ten before six” or “ten ‘til six”. Not the same for “ten of six”.

I have often had a problem with people understanding 4:20!

@Yetanotheruser Oh, maybe you are right, 10 of six. I think you are right, I do use that.

I had a girlfriend once call me up and ask, “how could you not tell me what schmuck really means, I use it all of the time?!” Ha! I thought it was funny.

I use more Yiddish in my social conversations now that I’m in New York, definitely.

Nothing like Yiddish, it is such a funny language. My favorite expression is “mishbukah mishagas” (no idea how you are supposed to spell it, there is no real way probably) which means “family chaos/nonsense/bs”, the alliteration puts it over the top for me.

New Yawka Here.

Soder. Fiyafly. Hawlf an Houa. Sprinkles.

@Grisaille HAHAHAH!!!! That is hysterical! You sound just like my mother.

I have lived a lot of places:

Soda
Fireflies
Half an hour
Sprinkles
Freeway (from living in California)
Flip-flops or sometimes zories
Sub sandwich
Water fountain

I hadn’t known that front room was a Chicago-ism. That explains why my husband calls it the front room even when (in our old house) it was in the back of the house.

@Darwin freeway, another really good one. I use highway a lot, and in some parts of the country the interstate is not the same as the highway.

freeways are for cheap bastards

Freeways are for Californians who have a state government smart enough not to have to build toll roads.

@Darwin Aren’t you guys dealing with a massive deficit?

:P

Not back then California wasn’t.

I was just in San Diego and I was SHOCKED that the bridge to Coronado Island was free. Definitely looked like the type of bridge that would have a toll. They could just charge the tourists a buck.

I also say “down there” no matter where I am.

If I am traveling north to visit my sister I say “were going down there tomorrow”,

No idea why.

@Bri_L I correct people when they do that. Lol. Is it that you have no clue about direction, or it’s just a saying? In MI a lot of my friends had no sense of direction, they just pointed to their hand—Michigander’s know what I am talking about.

@Bri_L it’s because you subconciously believe everything and everyone is beneath you

@JLeslie – It drives my wife crazy. I don’t do it on purpose.

@patg7590 – The only thing lower than me is my self esteem.

Oregon—
Pop
Firefly
Jimmies
either half hour / half an hour depending on context

Grew up in California with east coast parents and we said soda, firefly and sprinkles. I had not heard of “jimmies” before moving to Oregon.

Speaking of place names—We have Aloha, Oregon. Not pronounced like in Hawaii, but UH-low-eh.

In Memphis they use hearthroom, for the room off of the kitchen, I call it the family room. And, they say great room for what I would call the living room. To me a great room is when you have one large living area and no formal living room in the house.

@Bri_L – You know how ‘Sconnies say “up North”? If I say that here, I get quizzical looks. Apparently, the term is “upstate.”

In New England, we say “front parlor” for the room for entertaining guests and “back parlor” for the comfortable, homey room for entertaining friends.

@aprilsimnel NY is upstate, midwest is up north, not sure about other places.

Great Boston joke: How do you pronounce “G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T C-E-N-T-E-R”?

Ans.: “Skully Skwehyuh” (Scollay Square), the site of that MTA stop.

@Les You, my dear, are a traitor. A true midwestern traitor.

How dare you say soda. How. Dare. You.

Folks, it’s pop. It’s pop all through the midwest and parts of canada and the pacific northwest.

Next you’ll be telling me that thin crust pizza is superior. shudder.

Also, I say lightning bug, and route is pronounced “raout”.

Also, let’s not forget the Des Plaines oasis, pronounced with all the s’s.

Oh, and I call those casual shoes you wear on your feet tennis shoes. Maybe sneakers, but I can’t remember if I picked that up somewhere else.

@casheroo Also, most chicagoans, like me, who move somewhere else get bullied into saying soda because all their snobby friends make fun of them for saying pop.

@andrew lurve for Des Plaines. I lived in Joliet (on the Des Plaines river and dated a young lady in the town of Des Plaines.

Portland, Oregon here.

Pop
Firefly
Half an hour or half hour
Sprinkles (I have never heard anyone in Oregon say “Jimmies” and if they had said it, I wouldn’t have had any idea what they were talking about, until reading this question.)

Also, everyone I know pronounces Aloha as Uh-low-uh. Not with the “eh” at the end.

@DrasticDreamer—pardon my misspelling of the pronounciation of Aloha. I tried to get the right descriptor in there.
Yep, I get jimmies at 31 Flavors & other places. Weird. I always thought they were sprinkles.

@andrew flip flops used to be thongs, but now you can’t say you are wearing thongs for fear that someone will think you are talking about butt floss.
My nephew calls his flip flops sandals which, to me are open shoes that are strapped on, not slipped on the feet. So he’s always confusing me with that one.

@aprilsimnel – No kidding? I guess now that I think about it I have heard the phrase upstate New York.

@andrew : I know I am. Its terrible. I just can’t help it. :-(
And never will I tell you thin crust is better. Never.

You know way too much about Chicagoland… I never knew these things about you. Des Plains, with the sssssss’s, of course!

@andrew: I think that’s why I started saying “soda”. Too many people made fun of me for saying it the other way, and now I’ve just become so used to it that I can’t help it. I cave into peer pressure way too easily.

@andrew Say all you want about route, raout or whatever.

BUT, IF YOU DARE CRITICIZE MY PIZZA YOU’RE A DEAD MAN

Tennis shoes…when I moved to MI that confused me, they use tennis shoes for every type of sneaker.

And, not to argue about pizza, because that fight is unwinnable, but when I lived in MI EVERYONE ordered pepperoni pizza like it was the standard. I went to a pool party at a friends house and they had ordered all 8 pizza’s with pepperoni, who does that? The vegetarian in the crowd was out of luck.

And, Saginaw say barrette bar-rette, which is probably correct technically, but everyone else I know says bir-ette.

My mom still uses thomgs.

Every so often you hear dungarees still, but that is more generational I think?

And, pocket book. I think they still say that in New York? Everywhere else it is purse or handbag, right? I’m not even sure.

Thanks everyone, I really enjoyed your answers.

@JLeslie I never realized that us Michiganders had those (tennis shoes and pepperoni pizza) what else would you use for a default topping?

@JLeslie

I go to Michigan State.

Pop
Fire fly
Half an hour
Sprinkles

I’m in Phoenix.

Soda – but most often I say soft drinks
Firefly
Half an hour
Sprinkles

@patg7590 are you agreeing with me about the pepperoni? I like my pizza plain, or mushroom, if I add meat it is sausage, but I don’t like the crumbly one, and that is what most places use.

@ivan I lived in Brody (Armstrong) for two years and then in an apartment—I loved going to school there, might go to homecoming this fall.

What I always thought was funny was that almost everyone I knew from MI insisted they had no accent. It was truly one of my favorite places that I have lived. The people were wonderful and great story tellers. I’m just waiting for global warming to heat up that state a little more so I can go back.

@JLeslie

Your observations are pretty much correct. Pepperoni is sort of the standard pizza for some reason. I like it, so I can’t complain. Most people in Michigan insist that they talk “normal” and it’s everyone else who have accents.

Have you ever been up to the UP? (up north :P)

Yoopers! Hee!

@aprilsimnel

Heh. Yeah, and they call us Trolls.

@andrew I would bully you into saying soda as well. That’s what real friends do.

@Ivan – Really? I only know Yoopers.

@Ivan I love the UP. We vacation near there and visit The Porkies. We always seem to pick up the accent while we’re there. eh

I’m from central Illinois.

Soda
Firefly
Half an hour
Sprinkles

Yeah, we make fun of the Yoopers because they have a Canadian accent. They call us “trolls” because we live under the bridge.

btw the Porcupine Mountains are pretty amazing.

@Ivan just St. Ignace, which doesn’t really count, but just to stay in a hotel before taking the ferry to Mackinac. But I have been to many cities in MI. I had a friend who lived in Boyne for a while so I’ve been there, Charlevouix (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) Gross Pointe, Royal Oak, Saginaw, Temperance, Birmingham, West Bloomfield. A close girlfriend of mine is Rebecca Regnier ABC news out of Toledo, if you know people in that area they might recognize her name.

@Ivan People from Michigan claim to talk normal becuase everyone thinks they talk normal, not many people can hear their own accent.

Michigan here!

Pop
both
half hour
sprinkle

@J0E

I wouldn’t go that far. People can’t hear their accent, but most are at least aware that they have one.

@J0E @Ivan It’s funny. I grew up in Las Vegas but moved to Illinois when I was 16. Everyone told me that I had an accent. I still have no idea what a Vegas accent is.

About the “no accent” thing
I heard from one of my teachers that the reason for this goes back to some sort of broadcasting thing, either radio or television, when it first started the person speaking was from the midwest because they wanted it to have as little accent as possible-since it was aimed at everyone. Something like that. Don’t know if its true

and yes for some reason I had always assumed pepperoni was the main ingredient in pizza, but I didn’t realize it was a regional thing, I thought it was like that everywhere.

i live in south florida, and it’s a fire hydrant, not a ‘johnny pump’. my mum said that yesterday, and i thought she made it up (she’s from new york though, so.).
it’s soda. it’s only coke if it’s an actual Coke, goddamn it. i use firefly more than lightening bug, but they’re kind of interchangeable to me (besides, i’ve only ever seen one). half an hour and a half hour are also interchangeable; it usually depends on my sentence. always sprinkles, never jimmies.

I thought Southerners called all pop Coke. A pernicious lie, is it?

I grew up, like @JLeslie, just outside of Washington, DC. When I was a kid, they were fireflies, but as an adult lightening bugs. I feel so sorry for those of you that have never had the pleasure of summer nights full of the little guys…such a lovely sight! Soda, sprinkles, either half an hour or a half hour – depending. Subs.

After moving to a more rural area only half and hour north of DC, I ran into lots of things I’d never heard of before: Red Velvet Cake and Kinklings. Anyplace south (towards DC) was referred to as “down the road”. Baughman’s Lane is pronounced Bogman’s, Taneytown is pronounced Tawnytown.

@augustlan but I grew up with parents from The Bronx, and I did not move to MD until I was 9, so I have some NY—I always say I could have grown up in China, but my parents are still from The Bronx—lol. I think I actually say Lightening bugs more than firefly, but it is interchangeable to me I would use both, I’m not sure why lightening bug comes to me first? I agree that it is sad that there are people who have never witnessed them. My husband is fascinated by them, like how we are when we are children, the first time he saw them was in his 30’s when we moved to Raleigh, NC. Here in TN we have many many more, we live in the woods, and he still thinks they are amazing.

@patq7590
My MI friends used to tell me the newscaster story to, probably true, but that does not mean no accent, everyone has an accent. Believe me everytime someone from MI says a word with “ou” in it, they are giving away where they are from—out, about, etc. And they tend to be more nasal, but this varies throughout the stat. Most people from MI have more of an emphasis on this than the people on TV. If you listen to Sarah Palin she is an exaggeration of this type of accent…BIG EXAGGERATION.

@tiffanyandthewall
Fire Hydrant is probably used by the majority of the nation, I don’t know anyone who says Johhny pump, never heard that.

@aprilsimnel
Yes many southers use coke for pop, probably one of the few things that I think is simply wrong. All of these other things, I just think when in Rome do as the Romans, but I will NEVER use coke for pepsi.

@augustlan – I am glad you found out about Red Velvet Cake. Life just isn’t complete without it.

But what are Kinklings?

California here.

Jimmies? I never heard of it. I heard of a jimmie hat, but I doubt it means anything like Sprinkles.

@Darwin They are the same thing as fastnachts, but “in parts of Maryland, the treats are called Kinklings, and are only sold in bakeries on Shrove Tuesday.” In Frederick, MD it is a huge thing. There they are usually rectangular and fried in lard.

for flip-flops/thongs, i can remember saying “zories”.

i say “vih-NEH-luh”; do y’all mostly say “vuh-NIH-luh”?

i used to say “Q-pahn” for “KOO-pahn” and “AHN-v’lohp” for “ENN-vuh-lohp”—i think they’re NewEnglandese.

around here (DC), pizza is of nearly infinite variety, both crustwise and toppingwise, except that it’s almost impossible to get what would be the default on Atwells Avenue (the most heavily Italian section of a majority-Italian city in a plurality-Italian state) in Providence, 3” squares with nothing but a pizzaioli (less sweet) tomato sauce on them, even at Ledo’s where the squares are smaller and the sauce is too sweet.

@augustlan I’ve never heard of fastnachts or kinklings.
@LexWordsmith I say Q-pahn

I also say pee-can for pecan…much of the south say pah-can.

Amazing how many colloquialisms there are in the USA. (I think that would be the correct term, you language people can correct me if I am wrong).

I say Q-pahn and AHN-v’lohp

@Ivan I say Q-pahn, I know I said that already, but I forgot to say I say en-vel-lope, which is how it’s spelled, so I guess that is one thing I say that makes sense :).

my wife, from SC, says “p’Kahn”; i, from RI, say “PEE-can”, and how rightly she inveighs against how vulgar that sounds!

sometimes doughnuts (donuts) are called “sinkers”—they don’t look likke fishing sinkers, except perhaps for washers that are used ad-hoc, so maybe it’s because they are supposed to float in coffee but the batter is so heavy that they weigh down your stomach.

so, so far, we have proceeded from regional lexical choices (and i think that it should be spelled “lightning bug”, for the way it shines out suddenly and then dies out after a moment, and it doesn’t really produce enough illumination to “lighten”[*] anything) to regional (or personal!) pronunciatiations, and now we are moving on to actual colloquialisms? Excellent! i’m really enjoying this.

[*] note that “to catch lightning in a bottle” is to have a sudden good idea or stroke of good fortune, in either case with long-lasting effects, not what happens when you catch a lot of lightning bugs and put them into a glass jar with holes in the cap and they synchronize their flashes.

Native Californian: soda, fireflies (even though we don’t have them), either way for time depending on the situation, sprinkles. I’ve heard the rest except for “jimmies.” Lot of non-native Californians living in California.

Although one might argue that I’m not a “native” if I don’t belong to an Indian/Aboriginal Tribe, but anthropologically they’re not native to this continent either in that sense.

As for (American) English regional accent, I pronounce words like most news anchors on the national major networks. I think its fairly region free/accentless. I’ve never had someone say that they could pick out where I’m from from the way I speak. Attitude or dress, maybe, but not the way I speak (even in foreign languages, as I try to imitate a native speaker voice, not speak in my own). Other than being American.

Oh, but some of the other regional words: p’Kahn, strangely I catch myself pronouncing other words in inconsistent ways which is probably due to the large amount of non-natives here creating a lack of regional identity (no I don’t surf, nor do I call anyone “dude.”)

I try to pronounce the word as it is pronounced in the original language if I know it.

As for zories, zori is Japanese for a type of footwear that most resembles flip-flops, but I’ve used and heard all those words including thongs, but now thongs are something I associate with swimwear or underwear, not footwear. House slippers, I also hear some say. Sandals I think of something more strappy.

Sweeper in parts of the midwest (maybe other places too?), vacuum everywhere else.

When I was in New Orleans “N’AW-lins”, “New-OR-le-ans” or “Noo-Or-LEEns”) I had a coupon (KYWEW-pahn or KOO-pahn) for some pecan (p’KAHN, pee-CAN or PEE-kahn) praline (pray-LEEN, PRAW-leen, or PRAY-leen).

I think the proper pronunciation of a place should be the that used by the natives.

Same with names—if some named “Jim Smythe” wants to pronounce his own name as “Jim Smith” (or even “Conrad Hilton”), who am i to argue? His name is his property.

@LexWordsmith I agree. You pronounce a name however that person says it is to be pronounced. But, sometimes when you know the original pronunciation from the mother tongue and they have destroyed it by being in America for too many generations it’s difficult.

i, too, often feel nostalgia for the good old traditional(*) ways, but our frenetic modern world cuts me no slack—it slaps me across the face with a “keep up or fall by the wayside” attitude, as embodied in my offspring (they’re so “all grown up” now that they object to my calling them “my children.)”

(*) that is, pre-third-Christian-millennium; which i had plenty of time to get used to before the turn.

Western Florida here, though i was raised by family from Mass.
Its Soda,usually by name though,
Fireflies
Half hour and half and hour depends on the sentence,
Sprinkles usually, jimmies if im with family or my northern friends
I say Aunt(Au-hnt) while it seems the majority of people down here say Ant when referring to the sister of a parent,that bugs me so much.
I say Y’all meaning plural and most people seem to understand.
It seems that southerners speak more,harshly. Like they say the Whole word, every letter, and its all harsh.

@JLeslie I also think that is true about a place. The correct pronunciation is that used by those who live there. A good example is “New Orleans”. You generally hear it pronounced as “New Or-LEENS”, but if you visit there (other than MardiGras) you soon learn the correct pronunciation is “New OR-le-ans” or sometimes “N’AW-lins”.

@JLeslie : word, sistah. and how about “Nacogdoches”!

Is it Naah-kuh-doe-chehs?

And Refugio (Reh-FIUR-ee-yo). And San Jancinto (San Juh-CIN-oh). And Deaf Smith County (DEEF Smith Cown-tee).

And in California, San Rafael (San Rah- FELL).

And then there is Houston, Texas (Hy-OOH-stun) and Houston Street, New York (House-tun).

i can be “supercalifragilistic spelling nakkaDOchiss”!<grin>

And Wimberly, TX, is often pronounced “WEM-b’lee” by area residents.

Chicago
I say Shicawgo
Soda
down the road
lightning bug
gym shoes
COOpon (coupon)
PEEcaun(pecan)
Praylean (praline)
highway
up north or down south
Douwg (dog)
QuAUTA (QUARTER)
everyone tells me i sound like a country jersey girl kinda like fran on the nanny

@roxann Welcome to Fluther!

This is still one of my favorite threads. I was happy to see it pop up again in my activity for me.

@roxann Welcome.

@roxann I am from the Chicago area, and I sound completely different from you. I say:
shi-caa-go
pop
Q-pon
sprinkles
half an hour

.

New England:

Soda
fire fly
both sound fine
both, though sometimes with different meanings

When I was living in Tampa, I got strange looks the first time I asked where the bubbler was. Also, responding with “What?” is considered rude there as well. And while I’m at it, apparently sweet tea is much different than sweetened tea.

@dxs We have had more than one Q with me trying to explain to northerners (I’m from the northeast originally) sweetened tea and sweet tea are two different things. A few people I’m sure still think I don’t know what I’m talking about.