<p>back to the bag topic: Here, with the exception of the grocery store, merchants will ask you if you need a bag rather than just putting your stuff in one. The default is no bag, even for drugstore items, and the question is always ‘need’ rather than ‘want’. I love this - especially since our dog passed away 
This is not even in Seattle where they are doing away with plastic store bags all together.</p>
<p>Here in Harrisburg, PA, the lawn needs mowed before a yard sale. But we can be sure you’re not from around here by the way you say Lancaster. It’s LANK-i-ster, not lan-CAST-er.
And if we’re talking bags, do you mean a purse or a pocketbook?</p>
<p>^ didn’t know, had to look it up- and I’m from Phila. Or, was. N’er to old to learn. Maybe that’s also German influence.</p>
<p>OMG! First of all thank you to all of you whom enlightened me on why H repeatedly says “needs washed” or “needs mowed.” He was born in a small PA town near Pittsburgh (which both of his parents are from) and his parents are both mostly German when it comes to the family tree. Ding, ding, ding. Light bulb just went off. 
</p>
<p>I am loving the Minnesotans on here (and Wisconsonites) reminding me of my ‘home’ dialect. ha. BClintonk - you are so right about ‘baig.’ I took Step-D to the Mall of America year and the sales clerk asked her if she wanted a ‘baig.’ She panicked and looked at me so confused that I realized she had no idea what the woman was asking! lol </p>
<p>Growing up in Minnesota, my friends with the more pronounced accents pronounced Wisconsin as “Wis-Can-Sin.” We also had an irrational need to make fun of Iowans night and day and we’d say things like: IOWA stands for “Idiots Out Wandering Around.” lol </p>
<p>“hot-dish” is indeed a casserole but usually there are many ‘surprise’ ingredients that have been thrown into the mix. Another MN party favorite are “Bars” which are cookies that are baked in a pan (in a rectangular formation.) Bars can be tricky because, again, many will just throw in left-over ingredients to make the bars. Beware the “lemon surprise” bar because there just might be some random cocoanut, or raisins or whatever else the “bar maker” happened to have handy. I’ve been burned a few times by bars. lol</p>
<p>Not everyone in MN talks like “Fargo” but there are enough of us there, that it really is a more ‘true’ representation of the accent than not. In that movie, I love the interview (s?) with the girls from “Chaska.” Go Beairs" lol</p>
<p>And…Scoutsmom…- the “purse” “pocketbook” thing is one of the major ways I can tell where someone (likely) grew up. My mom grew up outside of Philly and always says “pocketbook.” I find most people in the Northeast ( or with Northeastern roots) do too.</p>
<p>Laurendog-- in MN do they say “fry out” for grilling? That’s one of the weirder ones from where we lived in WI, and I didn’t hear it anywhere else, like in Madison or Milwaukee. </p>
<p>I do love my kids’ WiSCANsin accents, which are fading day by day :(</p>
<p>lol on the bars, laurendog! My How to Talk Minnesotan also has a section on bars as well as the random things that one is likely to find in hotdish. It also covers dinner (noon), supper (after 5 but before the 6 o’clock news) and lunch (any other food mid morning or afternoon). It also speaks of “a little lunch” which as apparently a larger spread than just regular lunch and more what we would term a “luncheon”.</p>
<p>The book is old, so it’s funny to hear that the bars thing is real. We only have rice crispy bars, lemon bars and dream bars which are the ones with the coconut flakes, chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk.</p>
<p>saintfan, do you have Nanaimo bars south of the border, or are they strictly a Canadian thing?</p>
<p>Edit: according to Wikipedia, maybe you would be familiar with them. <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanaimo_bar[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanaimo_bar</a></p>
<p>“And…Scoutsmom…- the “purse” “pocketbook” thing is one of the major ways I can tell where someone (likely) grew up. My mom grew up outside of Philly and always says “pocketbook.” I find most people in the Northeast ( or with Northeastern roots) do too.”</p>
<p>Ah, so that’s why I say pocketbook.</p>
<p>Do you know why Sarah Palin sounds like she’s from the upper midwest? A group of Minnesotans settled in the Wasilla area in the early 20th century. I found that fascinating.</p>
<p>Never heard of or seen Nanaimo bars, weatherga. I have not seen much of the experimental qualities with bars in WA - a person might add peanut butter or M & Ms but no real secret or random thrown in ingredients. Where we get creative is with sweet breads. We do the basic banana bread and zuchini bread, but it rarely stays just there. One will find all manner of add-ins from dried fruits and nuts, to berries, to shredded veggies not zuchini, to flax. There is a more is better approach when it comes to both texture and add ins that might have antioxidant or other beneficial qualities.</p>
<p>It’s really pockabook.
Or handbag.
When I was growing up there, we never called it Philly, btw. Always Philadelphia. It was folks from NJ who said Philly.</p>
<p>Southern Californian here who lives right off “the 5”. Saturday Night Live did a few skits called The Californian’s that cracked me up. We do talk about driving a lot probably because public transportation is not great here. For example to describe driving to UCLA I would take the 5 to the 405 and get off on Sunset.</p>
<p>Buying alcohol in other states totally confuses me! Here we can buy everything at the grocery store. No limits or special stores.</p>
<p>After living in the Bay Area, one thing that DS was not prepared for in the Midwest are electrical storms. He wasn;t used to thunder and lightning and didn’t really know what to do in the event of lightning. since I had a family friend die when struck by lightining while playing sports, we had a quick course on lightining safety.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hnd.usace.army.mil/safety/organization/systems-eng/Safety/Safety%20Info/LIGHTNING%20SAFETY.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hnd.usace.army.mil/safety/organization/systems-eng/Safety/Safety%20Info/LIGHTNING%20SAFETY.pdf</a></p>
<p>And now back to dialects because this is one of the most fun threads on CC in a while. For once our differences are a good thing bringing all who read joy!</p>
<p>When I grew up in southern Virginia, you would still occasionally hear somebody refer to a bag as a “poke.”</p>
<p>This thread is great! Any tips for a kid from NJ heading to school in Ohio (Go Buckeyes!)?</p>
<p>Learn how to pump gas.
Know what to do in the event of a tornado.</p>
<p>NJ2011mom, thanks, good with pumping gas LOL Not as familiar with tornado procedures in NJ, if there are watches they are minor. All tornado safety tips welcome!</p>
<p>Driving habits also vary. Many Michigan drivers think Ohioans drive too slow. Many Ohioans think Michiganders drive too fast. And it always drives me crazy when driving through Wisconsin that a certain percentage of the drivers love nothing better than to pass you and then slow down to a lower speed than you were doing before they passed you. </p>
<p>Here in Minneapolis-St. Paul, an extraordinarily large fraction of drivers seem to think there are no rules as to who has the right-of-way at a 4-way stop; they’ll just pull up, often to a “rolling stop” (i.e., no stop at all), and proceed if they think they can make it safely without any regard for which car got there first. Or they’ll stop behind the car in front of them when it stops at the 4-way, then act as if that counts as their “stop” at the stop sign, even though they actually stopped a full car length short of the stop sign and behind another car! But that may be just the result of how driver’s ed is taught here in Minnesota. Both of my daughters took driver’s ed here, and they say there was not so much as a mention of who has the right-of-way at a 4-way stop, nor have I ever seen a question about it on the written portion of Minnesota driver’s test, nor any mention in the educational materials on driving rules distributed by the state. Come to think of it, maybe there ARE no rules on 4-way stops in Minnesota. Everywhere else I’ve ever lived (and that’s gotten to be quite a few places), the rules were clear and generally well respected: the first car to reach the 4-way stop has the right-of-way, and if two cars arrive simultaneously, the car on the right has the right-of-way.</p>
<p>And has anyone mentioned the Massachusetts Left? It came as a huge surprise to me as a Midwesterner moving to Boston that when a stoplight turns from red to green in Massachusetts, the car wanting to make a left turn at the head of the queue is given priority to make that left turn BEFORE the oncoming traffic from the opposite direction enters the intersection. Everywhere else I’ve ever been, it’s the opposite; traffic going straight in one direction has priority over a car wanting to make a left turn coming from the other direction. The Massachusetts way makes some sense; it’s much easier to make a left turn where there’s no left turn arrow. But it comes as a huge surprise to drivers from out of the region. I don’t know whether that’s the law in Massachusetts, or just a customary courtesy thing, but Massachusetts drivers just expect to make that left turn and it won’t even occur to them that the driver of a car with out-of-state plates might have other thoughts about who has the right-of-way. It must be equally confusing to Massachusetts drivers when driving in other states that the locals don’t want to give them priority to make that left turn.</p>
<p>Ok I’m going back to that dialect survey. My roommate, boyfriend, and I sat around last night and went over it. We represent SE Michigan, SW Michigan, and a small northern town. We have about every accent except for the UP. NONE of us say things like even half of that survey. And not a single one of us has ever heard anyone say “cray-on”. We all say “cran”. We don’t say “Florida” we say “Florda”. Michigan is kind of known for deleting syllables. The one that came closest was my roommate who comes from a small town up north. The only we can think of is that they managed to survey every person in the UP lol. Sorry, it’s just really bugging me.</p>