anyway, thanks for the mini-history lesson mom

My Results:

[url=http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp?action=take&quiz_id=9827][img]http://www.youthink.com/quiz_images/full_428371978.jpg[/img][/url]

Midland

(”Midland” is not necessarily the same thing as “Midwest”) The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it’s a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from the Midland.

ps - put the wrong link for mine - sorry

Northern

You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

The schematic (would not paste/copy) covers eastern North Dakota and Minnesota to the eastern New York Mountains - all the areas that I grew up in (except TEXAS) - so go figure. Keafer’s grandparents grew up in the mid North and since his grandfather was an English teacher - I s’pose the influence was strong no matter where we lived - and through at least three generations!

Find a white person from Milwaukee and ask them to say “backpack.” The vowel you hear in both syllables is different from the one we use. The Milwaukee speaker will produce something closer to “beckpeck.” There may be some diphthongization, but it won’t be as extreme as “bake-pake”.

So how does it end up rhyming with “vague”? I think the example only works if speakers of the upper Midwestern dialect pronounce it more like “vegg,” which is possible but unattested (seeing as how I don’t have a native speaker nearby).

*Or, as I wrote first, the “Northern Cities Vowel Shit.”