British-Irish dialect Quiz

Poststructural Pub
1

The New York Times has a quiz up. It can pinpoint where you’re from, which of course you already know, maybe.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html

I tried the quiz. It knew I was not from Ireland, England Scotland or Wales. But based on my answers it put me closest to Southwest Ireland, which makes sense given that I grew up in an irish-american community.


A few years ago they did one for the US. It was pretty uncanny. It located where I was from extremely accurately. It located my wife, who grew up moving around in a military family, exactly in her Mom’s hometown.

Note: I took it again and tried to be irish-- I used what i thought were irish expressions. It still knew I was not from Britain-Ireland, an called me strange, but this time it put me more or less in Dublin.

2

Seems to think I come from Norwich, (maybe London/Luton), but I come from Kent, born & bred. :smiley:

3

No doubt James Joyce would have something knowing to say about that. :laughing:

I’ll try it later.

4

Apparently I’m from London. Fail. Sure, only a 10hr 15 minute nonstop flight away, but still…

5

Got me in a 30 mile radius on the map, just slightly off-centre. A few words appeared to be very local usage. However, for some words (including ‘school’) the distribution map seemed rather odd.

6

I’ve just done it and it identified with uncanny accuracy where I was brought up - South East Wales. Impressive stuff.

7

“Definitely not from around here are you?” They nailed that, all right. :slight_smile:

I’ve picked up an amazing amount of British and Irish English since I joined up here, and I see from the survey that I’ve barely scratched the surface. But I played fair and only used such words as I grew up with and am likely to hear locally.

8

It put me on a sort-of north-west-to-south-east sweep from Skye and Fort William to Edinburgh and the Borders (with the emphasis strangely more on that south-east end when I’m Glaswegian by birth and a naturalised Highlander), but still fairly impressive!

9

I also did the test just for fun. I saw lots of British/Irish phrases I wish I used.

10

It was interesting to take that test. :thumbsup:
I have read the reason english is hard to learn as a second language is that there are to many words that mean the same thing. What I know as a drill press, over there it is a pillar drill. When I hear pillar the first image I have is the Parthenon temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece,

11

It was pretty accurate for me with a splodge covering West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

I was born in Yorkshire and then moved to Coventry as a kid. There were a few words that I realised would probably nail that :slight_smile:

12

“Not from around here” which is accurate. I formed my speech habits in Michigan.

The closest they could place me was Galway or Killarney in Ireland, with Birmingham, England as an alternate.

I have Irish ancestors, but they were from Down and Longford, not way out west.

13

It sussed out I’m from Sheffield, even though I threw a curve ball of some phrases borrowed from my Northern Irish mother.

14

Spot on. Lived in Limerick until I was 26, and it says Limerick, Galway, and Dublin. “Tackies” for runners is a pure Limerick term, Limerick and a small town in South Africa.

Interesting how it didn’t mention what we call the thing to tie your hair up with, I’ve had many an argument over what’s the proper word. And the word for a pencil sharpener :smiley: