Dialects

The results of an extensive dialect survey can be found at http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html. As an example, one question asks: What do you call the little gray creature (that looks like an insect but is actually a crustacean) that rolls up into a ball when you touch it?

a. pill bug (15.91%)

b. doodle bug (3.61%)

c. potato bug (12.95%)

d. roly poly (33.07%)

e. sow bug (4.13%)

f. basketball bug (0.08%)

g. twiddle bug (0.04%)

h. roll-up bug (0.21%)

i. wood louse (0.47%)

j. millipede (0.88%)

k. centipede (2.31%)

l. I know what this creature is, but have no word for it (9.44%)

m. I have no idea what this creature is (13.21%)

n. other (3.68%)

(10673 respondents)

An interactive quiz based on the above survey, can be found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0. This site includes plots based on over 1/3 million respondents. For example: