Done. Commenting to boost.

That's it? One question?

What about "Crick" and "creek"?

Done!

Which do you say? I say “crick”.

One question, did we get scammed

Do you want the zip code where we live now or the zip code where we grew up and learned to talk?

It depends!

I say Beech Crick, Pine Creek, and "The Crick Road"

I just realized I do say “creek” when referring to one by its full name like “Swamp Creek”. It’s very rare that I need to use the full name though (+ calling it that just sounds weird to me) since anyone that knows me irl knows what I’m referring to when I say “the crick” because they all know where I grew up, aka next to “the crick”.

preferably the area where you grew up and learned your dialect

"water" and "wudder"

"crayon" and "crown"

"wash" and "warsh"

"high school" and "huy school"

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Waitaminute... How else would one pronounce "cot" and "caught"?

I think it is relative to the crick you grew up near. If you would go down the street to the crick you would never call it a creek. You drive across the state and you pull up to a creek, well then it’s a creek.

Warsh +1

Submitted, good luck on your assignment :)

Me and my wife almost fot over this question.

The difference is barely noticeable.

Wait until he finds out that none of merry, Mary, and marry rhyme on the east side of PA.

Is it a bagel or a beggel?

cot is still cot, but caught is cawt

I have a merry/Mary/marry merger and I’m from SE PA… I understand I am an outlier in that regard though

Beggel

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Ah, the cot-caught merger. Good times, good times.

My accent is extra fun because I grew up in South-Central PA but with recent transplants from the Pittsburgh area. So I've got, primarily, a SC PA accent/dialect (soda not pop), missing a few SC PA words/phrases (I never learned "all" for "all gone"), and I've got a few words/phrases of Pittsburgheze in my vocabulary (redd up, sweeper, gum bands, slippy, the need + past participle thing ("the grass needs cut"), and, of course, kibossy) because my parents taught me how to talk. But I can understand Pittsburgheze pretty well (growing up visiting my relatives out there).

Oh, and then I moved further South so I say y'all. So that's even more fun!

I can hear my grandfather saying these words. He's been dead almost 5 years now. Thanks for the memories. <3

Sure thing. Did he also say "Iggles"?

What's interesting with warsh is that I have a friend, born and raised in Washington DC & suburbs, who says warsh. I'd love to see a map of the USA divided into "how to say wash" regions.

What do they sound like in the East?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cot%E2%80%93caught_merger the top audio file.

Cot sounds more letter A like, more nasal, while caught sounds more like ought. A lot more O like.

I fought with my dad over pop vs soda.

I’m from the east, and they all sound different. Mary rhymes with Carrie, Marry rhymes with carry, and merry rhymes with ferry.

I don't know. He was from Southwestern PA so he'd be more likely to say Stillers. ;)

I'll have to pay better attention because I don't know that I've heard that here in PA. It sounds just like a New England accent to me, or someone trying to sound like they're doing a NE accent.

Pretty much the same thing! =)

....Carrie & carry sound alike, and ferry rhymes with all of them. I'm still not sure how they sound different. Can you describe the actual sounds?

I'm assuming this is an eastern PA thing?

I'm not sure if this helps, but:

Mary–merry distinction:[55] Hence merry is [mɛɹɪ], but Mary is [mɛəɹɪ]. Mary also has an opener variant of [ɛ] than merry. Marry is pronounced as /æ/, which is distinct from the vowels of both Mary and merry.[55]

…right, the accent probably transfers to other sounds/words as well. Here’s a c&p from the Wiki Page:

“Mary has the a sound of mare, marry has the "short a" sound of mat, and merry has the "short e" sound of met.”

Not sure but I think so. I thought it was a NJ or NY thing

I think I remember learning that the “cot-caught merger” (when they sound the same) is actually the younger pronunciation, and said merger is more popular the further west in the country you go, and the younger the speaker.

That said, I say those two words differently and I am young too.

I'm going to start grilling my old college friends who are scattered around PA, my Lehigh Valley pals, and my family in the Harrisburg area about this. I can't say that I've heard any of them come close to approaching the New England-ish "aw" sound, and I've certainly never heard it here in western PA.

I test my kids all the time. Posers.

I mean, I don’t say it like a Bostonian would say “cwawfee”.

But for me, cot rhymes with hot, and the vowel in caught is like “law”. Just like “law” and “hot” have different vowel sounds for me, so do “caught” and “cot”.

I'm from Philly and I agree with this.

library and li-berry

Ooh, good ones! How could I forget those?

You better provide us with a follow up dataset/map overlay after this or I will be extremely upset.

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Fun fact: The soda/pop divide is pretty much right down the center of PA.

I grew up in Clearfield country where it was "pop", then later moved 90 minutes east to Northumberland county where is was "soda".

Beggle all day 😂

Penns creek and the Shamokin crick

I’m in the backseat drinking my soda pop wondering why you both hate me, can’t we all just get along?

>"crayon"

My wife, who grew up out of state, taught my kids to say “cray-on” — and then the wait staff at the diner couldn't understood what they were asking for.

She also taught the kids that "donkey" doesn't right with "monkey."

They are pronounced the same.

absolutely! still keeping the survey open for a few days though (or at least until responses die down)

Supposably

Creek, 100% of the time.

It applies to other words / names too

“john” vs “jawn”

“Don” vs “Dawn”

You'll share the map here when you are done?

yea! i’m still giving it time before i map any results though

But Washington DC is hardly in the midwest. It's a Mid-Atlantic state.

Can't forget -day vs -dee. Ex: Monday pronounced as Mondee.

I'm guilty of this one. I say both

water and wawter is the one kids at school will fight over!

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Does "home town" mean where in PA I was born, or where I have lived for 40 years? Different ends of the state.

I misunderstood what you were trying to say. My bad.