Talk:2372: Dialect Quiz

Fun fact: shallots, scallops, and scallions ran against each other in 1529: Bracket. (This will probably end up in the Trivia tab when one is created.) 172.69.10.135 20:50, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Apparently "scallops" is used in the UK for 'potato fritters', but in my youth in family camping trips the term was used for (fried) potato slices - like 'chips' (UK type) in thickness, but cut only in one dimension, not two. Often in the same pan, at the same time, as the sausages for the first night's meal, so with the distinct taste of lard and sausage-fat. I assume there's other names for this (greasy, possibly slightly charred/sausage-char-coated in places) delicacy. Similar slices (from boiled tatties, which might have been the preprepared state of the slices fried as above) were also ate un(re)heated in a salad/generic packed-lunch context. 162.158.158.247 18:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

My (US) experience is the phrase "scalloped potatoes" These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 23:27, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Cosmetology both sounds like "Cosmology" but it's also the fancy word for people who study cosmetics. --172.68.174.92 21:22, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Aren't stars the people we took cosmetics advice from before there were influencers? Or are they the same thing? Robert Carnegie [email protected] 162.158.155.102 00:55, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I mean the water fountains might as well be gutter pipes 21:49, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@kswoll: Pretty sure this is a direct parody of the NYTimes quiz here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

• I agree, this was also tweeted about 3 days earlier by Nate Silver [1] - based on 2371: Election Screen Time, it's likely that Randall saw that tweet 162.158.62.27 03:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

The Google pronunciation question might be a reference to a reference to a scene from the second-to-last episode of Halt and Catch Fire. 162.158.79.165 23:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

My guess is it is a reference to Yahoo another search engine that had commercials with high pitched yelp and some might put emphasis on either the "Ya" or the "hoo"

While I agree that most people know what a hammer is, this is not hammer - or rather, may not be considered "standard" hammer. Personally I would call it "Hammer with that thing for pulling nails out", but I could be easily convinced that it has some other name which doesn't include the word "hammer", instead of (presumably correct) claw hammer. -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:55, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

My feeling is that claw hammers are the type of hammer that most people are familiar with, and would consider the archetype of hammer. If you go to hammer the first picture is a claw hammer. Barmar

Objection, your honor! In German, this would be called a "Zimmermannshammer" (carpenter's hammer, which IS a claw hammer). But the Plato hammer has a simple wedge on the other side. Maybe a German almost never has the need to pull out nails again, /schweinhund/! :-) 162.158.158.103 08:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

(talk) 06:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, this quiz is about English dialects, so German words aren't very relevant, and that term includes "hammer" as part of it anyway, as with most terms an English speaker would call this type of hammer, as people would indeed recognize it as a type of hammer and understand anyone referring to it as just "hammer" even if they might have a more specific name for the variety of hammer it is. People would not normally use the terms listed here for it.--162.158.74.109 08:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Yeah, I was thinking it was a claw hammer, also. I do have a friend that pronounces the word jen-er-uh, even though I have specifically said the word correctly around him after he has used it. SDSpivey (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

"genera" is a word. I typed it into Google, marvelled at the incomprehensible phonetic version, and tapped a speaker button. My computer said "Genera" and a box popped up that reads "Learn to pronounce", which I consider to be rude. But after all, I pressed the button. Robert Carnegie [email protected] 162.158.158.225 00:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Russian probe sent to Venus? And I'm so confident about that, that I shall not even check before posting. (No idea how it's said in Russian, but the Anglophone versios doesn't differ between anglophonic countries as much as "Moscow" does.) 162.158.155.72 01:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, so I now know I merged two different Russian space-thingies. 162.158.159.140 01:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, who’s the joker that put “Citation needed” at the end of “ "Google" is not generally pronounced with a high-pitched yelp on either syllable.[citation needed]”

I was about to do the same myself (i.e., put "Citation needed" about pronunciation of 'Google') until I read the note about Yahoo. But isn't 'Citation needed' used as a bit of a running joke in Explain xkcd, placed after bold claims that nobody would actually challenge because they're obviously correct?^{[citation needed]}162.158.166.43 02:10, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

"Many-legged scaly creature" makes me think of silverfish, centipedes or millipedes, though they have exoskeletons rather than scales, and certainly don't eat light bulbs. It seems to me that a segmented exoskeleton is reminiscent of scales, though. 162.158.154.167 07:37, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Question 8 sounds like a hybrid, to me, with another part coming from a glow worm / firefly question. 141.101.68.12 10:19, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think he had an specific real animal in mind there, as though people are saying segments can resemble scales, they aren't really the same thing, and nothing with many legs is truly "scaly", and the things people are coming up with, though it's possible they could be in an attic, they don't primarily live just in those to the point that is one of the characteristics people would describe them with (any such thing can be found elsewhere as well, and probably seen more often outside of attics as many people don't enter attics often.)--162.158.75.160 09:11, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

possibly for this one he was thinking of a grue. Since they live in the dark it seems reasonable they would eat light bulbs. And since no-one knows what they look like, "many legged scaly" could possibly be a description.

13 seems to be referring to these to me. 173.245.52.169 12:30, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Please feel free to edit/condense my rambly explanation of shallots/scallions. Debating removing the second and third detailed paragraphs entirely. I'm from NSW and have seen confusion on recipes posted online so not exactly impartial. 103.22.201.134 16:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm half remembering in the original Thunderbirds series, an old NASA colleague of Geoff Tracey who 'poses' as an generic ¿Deep South? country-bumpkin/local-yokel (grown up in the area, though obviously smart enough to get into NASA and then later 'retire' to become a trusted International Rescue local agent... or so I may extrapolate) calling Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, with whom he was clearly familiar, "Penn elope" (to "rhyme with antelope"). I shall have to dig up my complete VHS tapes to confirm... and probably spend a couple of days just watching them all, for old times' sake ...but clearly the script called for an uneducated (mis)pronunciation of her name - maybe feigned as part of his act/through habit. So if it aint an actual misconception/affectation by someone, that the scriptwriters (or voice-actor) used, then it needs far more explanation. 162.158.155.72 02:43, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

When I was very very young, I did believe that Penelope rhymed with antelope. But The Perilous Perils of Penelope Pitstop soon put paid to that. --141.101.98.52 10:27, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Re: "genre" - what about the Alex Trebek pronunciation? QoopyQoopy (talk) 03:52, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Anecdotal, I know, but I've never heard someone pronounce "genre" the same way they pronounce "Alex Trebek".

Also it was only a few months ago I figured out that Scallions weren't Scallops, so they can indeed easily be confused (in discussion, not when actually present, hopefully!) PotatoGod (talk) 06:56, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

In Question 9, "Devil's Marks" may also be a reference to the question about rain on a sunny day in the Harvard study and NYT quiz. One of the answers is "The Devil is beating his wife" Thaledison (talk) 17:58, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

In slightly expanding the "animated video file" entry I left out the following (related, but possibly slightly too unrelated) information. In Louis Carol's Jabberwocky, the phrase "Gyre and Gymble" (in its initial version, with "y"s in there where all "i"s would later be, but also "y^e" for "the", or rather the y-like character it would take too long to conveniently copy into here) was undoubtedly doubly a hard-G. "Gimbling" was apparently derived from the action of punching holes for "gimlets" (possibly a feeding behaviour, the slithy toves (slimy+lithe creatures that are part badger, part lizard and part corkscrew) presumably poking their noses into the ground). "Gyring" is spinning like a "gyroscope" (to further send their helical snouts deeper). Both are authoritatively intended to be hard-Gs as even "gyroscope" was, at that time, so mouthed. Though I've heard many a "jire and gimble" in modern recitation (the reader missing the likely opportunity for aliteration), as well as the double-hard-G approaches. Interestingly also the occasional "jire and jimble" version, presumably the reader doubling-down on their soft-G choice for the former and respecting the repetition intuitively intended. Me, I'm probably inclined to doubling the hard version, but it's been so long since ever I had to recite it that I can't even remember what I might have initially cold-read it as. ;)

Additionally additionally, the product "Jif" (bathroom cleaning cream) which was supposed to be the homophonic inspiration for the "gif" file's soft-G, was changed (in the UK market) maybe two decades ago to "Cif" - apparently to match the mainland Europe marketing name ("J" varies from soft-G to a 'hard-Y' over there, possibly even to other sounds). But there was much derision at the time by those who pointed out the new issue of whether it was a hard-C ("kif") or soft-C ("sif"), whatever the TV ads announcing the change said (soft!). ((Not sure when exactly that happened, especially in relation to the Opal Fruits->Starburst and Marathon->Snickers renamings, etc, but I think there was also eye-rolling at the changing of a long-recognised major (localised) brand-name for perhaps rather crass 'business' reasons.)) 141.101.98.154 19:44, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Mad props to Randall for running the survey questions on @xkcd twitter. 172.68.141.14 23:24, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

In my childhood dialect, "give" is very weakly voiced and the hard-G gif pronunciation is very similar. I now voice it much more strongly, but that question took me back to growing up in Merseyside, England. Po8crg (talk) 13:03, 17 October 2020 (UTC)