Survey results!

Tom K.   Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:16 pm GMT
Remember those "linguistic surveys" that kept popping up here? Well, they turned out to be useful! I rounded up the results of those surveys as well as similar surveys circulated on other boards (some of which I wrote), and put all the results here: http://students.csci.unt.edu/~kun/bigsurvey.html

Feel free to comment on what you see there.
Lazar   Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:59 pm GMT
Hmm, that's interesting. The results for "Boston & NENE" fit pretty well with how I speak.
Tiffany   Wed Aug 31, 2005 3:35 am GMT
Why does it say in the example that all Florida natives claimed there was no difference in the the words "cot" and "caught", yet the chart says 20% of us make the distinction?

And forgive me, but what the hell is the bat-bath merger? They obviously sound different. Are you referring to the vowel each is said with?

Also, why is it assumed you either pronounce Mary-merry-marry all the same or all different? I happen to pronounce Mary-merry the same and "marry" differently.
Tom K.   Wed Aug 31, 2005 3:54 am GMT
OK, OK, OK, so I need to change what it said at the top. I spent hours typing the thing, going through message boards, etc., etc., etc., and by the time I finished it this afternoon I wanted to forget about the whole thing for a while. I mean, this started out as a fun spare time project and turned into a nightmare of infinite boredom.

And bat-bath, yes I am referring to the vowels. I'm pretty sure I wrote that on the page. And Mary/merry/marry, most of those surveys only had that and no other option, so I just decided I would count people with your distinction (Mary=merry but not marry) as distinct. No, it's not perfect, but this wasn't supposed to be official or anything.
Tom K.   Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:11 am GMT
Alright, the introduction has now been fixed and is more detailed. If you're wondering why I "spent hours typing the thing" it's because I never used an HTML editor. That's right, I busted out the whole thing by hand! I got good at typing it fast near the end.
Tiffany   Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:54 am GMT
Thanks Tom :-D