The World Around You

Reading this post by Michael at Minority of One, I was starting to wonder whether he had been possessed. (Sarcasm doesn’t always carry well on the net)

What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
a. shopping cart
b. grocery cart
c. carriage
d. buggy
e. other

What is your generic term for a sweetened carbonated beverage?
a. soda
b. pop
c. coke
d. cocola
e. soft drink
f. other

These questions were included in a dialect survey conducted by Harvard University, which I found through the Topeka Capital-Journal. This survey hit home with me, because being a “Yankee”, I have had to learn the southern way to refer to things. I would have a hard time with these questions, because I grew up favoring one answer, but have assimilated enough to answer another way.

Check out the results for Alabama here. The national results for the first question are here.The national results for the second question above are here