What dialect do you speak? A map of American English

BY REID WILSON

Do you pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd? Do you refer to multiple people as “dey”? Is a jelly doughnut called a “bismark,” or is everything that comes out of a soda fountain called a coke, even if it’s really 7-Up? Do you root for Da Bears?

The way we speak, both the phrases we use and the accents that inflect those phrases, come from our upbringings. And in a nation of more than 300 million people, it’s little wonder that those accents vary widely. More than a decade ago, Robert Delaney, a reference associate at Long Island University, put together this map of the 24 regions of American English:

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Here’s a quick rundown of the regions Delaney identified:

Eastern New England: These are the cah pahkahs, the blue collar residents from Maine to Massachusetts who drop their Rs and substitute an H. Think Jack Donaghywhen he hangs out with Nancy Donovan on “30 Rock.”

Boston Urban: There are a few sub-dialects in the Hub, from the stereotypical Southie dialect (Sully and Denise on “Saturday Night Live”) to the Boston Brahmin (John Kerry). The differences are more determined by class than anything else.

Western New England: Outside eastern Massachusetts, it’s the T that gets dropped. The last Democratic president was Bill Clin-n, for example. It’s not as distinctive as the eastern accent.

Hudson Valley: Dutch settlers, Delaney says, influenced language development north of New York City. The sitting area in front of your doorstep is a stoop, and the best-sellers at Dunkin’ Donuts are crullers and olycooks.

New York City: The mix of ethnicities that built the Big Apple created their own dialect that doesn’t sound much like the rest of America. TH sounds become Ds, and words get smashed together easily. There’s no better example than Marisa Tomei and Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny.”

Bonac: A small and dwindling dialect on Long Island, which was once a part of New England. Combine New York City and Eastern New England and you get the idea.

Inland Northern: Upstate New York and Vermont combine Western New England and the Midwest, and words like marry, merry and Mary are all pronounced identically. Delaney points out another doughnut difference: Here, they’re called friedcakes.

San Francisco Urban: The city by the bay has more in common with the East Coast than the West Coast, thanks to the settlers who originally made their way to the Bay Area. San Franciscans speak a mishmash of Northeastern and Midwestern English.

Upper Midwestern: Home of the Midwestern twang, influenced by a combination of Northeasterners and Southerners who migrated up the Mississippi River, as well as the Scandinavian immigrants who settled the area. A subdialect in and around Minnesota reflects more of that Norwegian influence. Think “Drop Dead Gorgeous.”

Chicago Urban: Bill Swerski would be proud. Chicago’s distinctive dialect is influenced by what linguists call the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, when short vowels started sounding like their longer cousins. Chicago’s dialect was influenced by migrants who traveled along the Erie Canal, west from the Northeast. They root, of course, for Da Bears.

North Midland: Here’s where the European immigrants who didn’t move to New York City start playing a role. The Scotch-Irish, German and Quaker settlers from Pennsylvania to the central Midwest created what Delaney calls a “transition zone” between the north and south. Doughnuts are dunkers or fatcakes.

Pennsylvania German-English: A small but distinct dialect in the center of the Keystone State, probably spoken by Dwight Schrute’s ancestors. The grammar system is the most distinctive remnant of the region’s immigrant populations; it sounds more like German than English.

Rocky Mountain: Think Montana, Colorado and Utah. Heavy influences from frontier settlers and Native American languages.

Pacific Northwest: More influence from Native American languages. An example is the potluck, a gathering where everyone brings a dish, a derivation of the Native American “potlatch.” Muckatymuck, known elsewhere as a big shot, is another Native American term adopted by Northwesterners. But there’s less of an accent here than elsewhere, given the fact that the region was settled relatively recently.

Pacific Southwest: The settlers who showed up came to California for the gold, and that still shows in some of their slang — Delaney cites “pay dirt,” “pan out” and “goner” as phrases that started in California. Sub-dialects of Valley Girls and Surfer Dudes are ripe for parody, as in Cher and Travis from the timeless classic “Clueless.”

Southwestern: Mexican dialects of Spanish infuse Southwestern English, though the region is still what Delaney calls a melting pot of other dialects. Words like “patio” and “plaza” became a part of everyday English thanks to the Southwest.

South Midland: West of the Appalachians and into North Texas, speakers here sometimes put an A before a word ending in -ING, in place of words like “are.” TH is often replaced with an F. Delaney says this region retains more strains of Elizabethan English than modern British English has, including words like “ragamuffin,” “reckon” and “sorry,” meaning “inferior.”

Ozark: Southern Appalachian settlers developed their own dialect, best embodied in pop culture by the Beverly Hillbillies.

Southern Appalachian: The “g” in gerunds doesn’t survive often here. But overall, the accent is pretty similar to the South Midlands.

Virginia Piedmont: A syrupy drawl starts to develop south of Washington, where the letter R, when coming after a vowel, becomes what Delaney calls a slided sound. So “four dogs” sounds like “fo-uh dahawgs.”

Coastal Southern: Similar to the Piedmont drawl, but with more remnants of Colonial English. Something diagonally across the street is “catty-corner.”

Gullah: A Creole mix found in coastal areas of Georgia and South Carolina combines English with West African languages brought over by slaves who entered the U.S. in the 1700s and 1800s. Words like “peruse,” “yam” and “samba” all entered the country here.

Gulf Southern: Basically the Deep South minus Georgia and New Orleans. It’s a result of mixing English settlers from the southern colonies with French settlers in Louisiana, and it’s where we get words like “armoire,” “bisque” and “bayou.”

Louisiana: The French settlers who first traveled up the Mississippi River brought a whole mess of dialects. They include Cajun French, which incorporates some Spanish, and Cajun English, which makes New Orleans “Nawlins.”

Here’s another way linguists view the English dialects spoken in the U.S.:

Courtesy Robert Delaney

Anonymous 'TipsforJesus' Is 'Doing the Lord's Work' By Leaving Thousands of Dollars in Tips

By JENNIFER MAAS

An anonymous person or persons armed with an AMEX Centurion card, a love for college football and an Instagram account is setting out to "do the Lord's work, one tip at a time," leaving thousands of dollars in tips to unsuspecting servers.

On Sept. 8, an @tipsforjesus Instagram account posted the first photo verifying its mission, capturing the image of a receipt for Bar Louie in Ann Arbor, Mich., where they left a $3,000 tip for an $87.98 tab. The account posted two more receipt photos the next day, one featuring a $5,000 tip, the other showing a receipt with a $7,000 tip held by a grinning man, confirmed to be the co-owner of Alley Bar in Ann Arbor. Both of the receipts were signed, "@tipsforjesus."

That same day, tipsforjesus also posted a screenshot of an ABC 4 Utah article about a "mysterious" tipper who left thousands of dollars in tips in Ogden, Utah, this August, with the photo description "#tipsforjesus."

The account has remained active ever since, continuing to leave tips of over $1,000 in bars and restaurants in cities like San Francisco and Chicago. And although tipsforjesus has received numerous comments of praise, and some of skepticism, the account has continued to keep its user's identity a secret.

The only clue that follows the generosity is the account's love of college football. The signed receipts consistently show up in college town establishments on game days and include sentiments such as "Fight On!" Restaurant employees who have received the tips in Ogden, Utah, and Ann Arbor, Mich., say the anonymous person uses an American Express Centurion Card, more commonly known as the Black Card.

But while keeping their identity secret, the account is still verifying the large tips through signed customer copy receipts (now being marked with an "@tipsforjesus" stamp), and recently, they posted a photo of their online account activity to clear up a controversy concerning a Notre Dame University restaurant, where they left over $10,000 in tips in one night, that have still not been distributed to their servers.

A Legends of Notre Dame server contacted them through Instagram, writing that she had waited on them on the day of a USC vs. Notre Dame game and never received their tip. Tipsforjesus wrote back, "AMEX got paid, you should've got paid. Check with Legends management... sounds like the owners are trying to screw you. Tipsforjesus pays it's tabs!"

They then posted the screenshot of their online statement, which confirmed the large amounts charged to the card, with the caption, "Let's be clear, the Legends of Notre Dame tips were processed by AMEX and paid. tipsforjesus pays it's tabs. God bless! @notredame Your move."

Tipsforjesus has posted little in the way of written explanations for their generosity, focusing only on photos of their tipping habits and leaving comments from inquiring news outlets unanswered. But that hasn't stopped the account's commenters, a large number of them wait staff requesting visits to their own establishments, from speculating about their reasons.

One Instagram user, @mrs_ewing_, who said their father works at Legends in Notre Dame and witnessed their large tipping wrote, "That was an awesome thing! It gives me some kind of hope in humanity for people."

New data show ‘meteoric’ rise of Texas oil

by Simone Sebastian

HOUSTON — Oil production in Texas has hit its highest monthly rate on record, more than doubling in less than three years, according new federal data.

The state pumped 2.7 million barrels of crude per day during September, the highest monthly average since at least January 1981. Texas oil production had been declining since the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s monthly record-keeping began in 1981. But the tide abruptly turned in 2008 with the beginning of the shale oil and gas boom.

For 25 straight months, the state’s oil production rate has increased by more than 25 percent year-over-year, notes economist Mark J. Perry, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Management.

“Output in America’s  No. 1 oil-producing state — Texas — continues its phenomenal, meteoric rise,” Perry wrote on his Carpe Diem blog. “That production surge has to be one of the most significant increases in oil output ever recorded in the U.S. over such a short period of time.”

Texas produced 35 percent of the United States’ crude oil in September. The growth largely has been fueled by oil production in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale and West Texas’ Permian Basin, which have expanded rapidly to produce more than 1 million barrels of oil per day each, placing them among nine “super-giant oil fields” in the world, Perry says.

Texas’ oil production peaked in 1972, when it produced an average of 3.4 million barrels per day, according to data from the Texas Railroad Commission.

Netanyahu vows to banish ‘darkness’ of Iran nuclear program

BY JOSHUA DAVIDOVICH

Melding the Hanukkah holiday and foreign affairs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu solemnly vowed to serve as a “light unto the nations” and act against Iran’s nuclear program should diplomacy fail Thursday night.

Speaking at the Western Wall for a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony, Netanyahu compared Iran’s nuclear program to a darkness that would be forced out by Israel, referencing a popular children’s song for the holiday.

“We came to drive out the darkness, and the largest darkness that threatens the world today is a nuclear Iran,” he said. “We are bound to do all we can to prevent this darkness. If possible we will do this diplomatically, if not we will act as ‘a light unto the nations’.”

Jerusalem has denounced a deal signed Sunday between Iran and six world powers that eases sanctions in return for limits on uranium enrichment and a more intrusive inspections regime.

Earlier Thursday, Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council took to the pages of The New York Times to rail against the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, calling the accord a diplomatic failure that missed the mark in diverting Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.

“The agreement represents a failure, not a triumph, of diplomacy,” Amidror wrote.

Netanyahu has been castigated at home and abroad for taking a harsh stand against the US and Europe for signing the deal, with critics claiming he is deepening Israel’s isolation while strengthening the Iranian regime.

The prime minister, however, said he had “not given in to delusions” that Iran would pull back its nuclear program, comparing the nuclear deal to a failed diplomatic initiative meant to stymie North Korea’s nuclear program.

“I believe in speaking the truth, and standing for important principles in order to ensure peace in the world and our security, and of course our peace,” he said. “We will continue to act in this spirit.”

Peres: Iranians and Israelis not enemies

The prime minister added that Jerusalem was in talks with the US and P5+1 to ensure that a final deal “brings a final result of the dismantling of Iran’s ability for a military nuclear program.”

Speaking on a state visit to Mexico City, President Shimon Peres struck a more conciliatory tone, saying Israel preferred diplomacy and that Iran and Israel were not enemies.

He called on Tehran to stop sponsoring terror, end its nuclear program and halt development of long-range missiles.

“There are countries that try to take advantage of this transition [in the Middle East] and attempt to overpower other countries and stop their march to the new age,” Peres said. “They do it by building nuclear threats, centers of terror, tongues of hatred. Iran has signed an interim agreement with the P5+1. Success or failure of the deal will be judged by results, not by words.

“As far as Israel is concerned, we do not consider the Iranian people our enemies,” he stressed. “We do not share a border. We do share a common history. It demonstrates that we can be friendly. There is an opportunity to solve this issue diplomatically. It is in your hands. Reject terrorism. Stop the nuclear program. Stop the development of long-range missiles,” he continued.

“Israel like the rest of the international community prefers a diplomatic solution. But the international community will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. No one threatens Iran. When Iran will cease to threaten others, it will liberate itself from the burden which it has brought upon itself. I truly hope that this deal will free the Iranian people from being a source of menace and will turn it into a contributing nation for peace. Only time will tell,” he said, sounding rather more optimistic than Netanyahu over the deal.

“Israel extends its hand in peace to all its neighbors. But we have learned from bitter experience to beware of tyrants. Tyranny has no message for the future. It offers dark nights instead of enlightened days.   The real promise of progress lies in the employment of science and technology by a society which seeks justice and peace,” said Peres.

Comet ISON, if it survives trip around the sun, could bring spectacular sky show

By Meeri Kim

As Comet ISON hurtles toward the sun, its million-year-long journey through our solar system may end with its violent death — or a spectacular sky show.

On Thanksgiving, when the comet rounds the sun, professional and amateur astronomers alike will await ISON’s fate with bated breath. Its tail may get ripped off by a cloud of solar particles, or the sun’s brutal radiation and pressure may demolish it completely.

But if ISON makes it out alive, stargazers say, it could provide a breathtaking show visible to the naked eye and possibly live up to the name “Comet of the Century,” as some astronomers have dubbed it.

“On Friday, we’ll all be delighted to see its beautiful face as it then comes around the sun,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division. “Then between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it will fly over the North Pole — a very nice holiday comet.”

ISON is a lone traveler originating from a giant population of comets at the very edge of the solar system.

“ISON is very special,” Green said. “What makes it different is where it comes from — the further reaches of the sun’s gravity.”

The distance from the Earth to the sun is an AU, or astronomical unit; Pluto is 40 AU from the sun. Comet ISON began its journey 100,000 AU away from us.

It comes from a place called the Oort cloud, a loose nebulous sphere containing billions of icy, rocky objects. Detected comets from the Oort cloud are rare, probably only a handful per century, Green said.

For all of human history — at least a million years, according to NASA — this comet has been heading toward the sun. On Thanksgiving, ISON will reach perihelion, or the point in orbit where it is closest to the sun. Green calls the comet a “sungrazer” since it will come within a hair of the sun, swing around it and slingshot back outward.

But experts aren’t sure it will come out the other side intact. “Comets tend to be delicate, so it may actually break up,” said Adam Block of the University of Arizona’s Mount Lemmon Sky­Center.

Comets are mostly made of ice, with some dust and soil and rocks mixed in, and so any number of destructive things could happen to ISON. First, intense solar radiation will boil the water in the comet as it gets closer to the sun. It could face total disintegration, or survive initially and break apart later. Or the sun could send out an unfortunate burst of solar material called a coronal mass ejection that would pull off the comet’s tail.

Both space-based observatories and ground-based solar telescopes will watch the comet closely, detecting how the shape and composition of the comet evolve in real time.

“We can watch the whole thing unfold,” said Block, who hopes it will come back around even brighter and with a big tail.

If ISON survives the close shave, the comet will likely look its best for the first weeks of December as it passes close to Earth.

As it careens along, ISON will be spraying out dust, water and carbon dioxide from the faraway parts of the solar system into our neighborhood — all of which will reflect sunlight. There are no worries about a collision with Earth, although roughly 40 percent of our water has come from space bombardments like comets and asteroids, said Green.

If the comet’s ice does dissipate, the remaining rocky material could just continue to orbit the sun. For instance, the famous Leonid meteor shower that just peaked last week are the leftovers of an old comet.

ISON, detected in September 2012, was named for the international collaboration of scientists working on the project, the International Scientific Optical Network.

The original excitement came from when it was further than the orbit of Jupiter, shining brightly, and many comet scientists thought it would be massive.

“It started out being very promising, but we now know from observation that it’s probably fairly small,” Green said, estimating a size of 2 kilometers — about the distance from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

If you’re an early riser, you may be able to catch a glimpse now in the twilight before dawn, near the planet Mercury. But as it ventures closer to the sun, ISON will become increasingly harder to see. Block, an avid astrophotographer, suggests that comet-hunters wait until after perihelion.

If the comet survives, viewers should be able to see it during the first or second week of December, either with the naked eye or using binoculars. To take a photo, Block said a simple digital camera on a tripod should do the trick, with an exposure time of 10 to 30 seconds.

Before dawn, look for a prominent object with a bright tail pointing upward, advises Damian Peach, a British astrophotographer who has managed to capture the fleeting comet with stunning detail.

“Look to the southeast around 30 minutes before sunrise, and you may be able to see the comet with the unaided eye,” Peach said in an e-mail.


Kim is a freelance science journalist based in Philadelphia.

George W. Bush's artwork up for sale

By CAITLIN MCDEVITT

This Christmas, for $29.98, you can trim your tree with some of former President George W. Bush’s artwork.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center is selling an ornament that features 43’s own painting of a cardinal perched on a branch.

Bush painted the bird as a gift for former Ambassador Warren Tichenor, and his wife decided it looked Christmas-y.

(WATCH: George W. Bush paints Jay Leno's portrait)

“Laura liked the bright red on the cardinal and the green of the foliage and chose my painting, for which I am grateful, for the Christmas card and the ornament,” the former president says ina video posted online. “I’m flattered. I hope my painting meets expectations.”

Earlier this week, Bush chatted about his painting hobby on “The Tonight Show.”

“I do take painting seriously,” he said. “It’s changed my life.”

(PHOTOS: George W. Bush’s career)

Bush said he takes lessons once a week and once told his teacher, “There's a Rembrandt trapped in this body. Your job is to find it."