Monday, January 08, 2007

bag as in vague

Since I moved to Florida, the two things I get the most grief for are pop and bags. I knew that pop was a Minnesota thing and most of the rest of the world calls it soda, but call me stubborn--I still like to call it pop. It threw me for a loop though when I'd be at a store or restaurant and ask for a bag to go, and I'd have to say it 3-4 times, and still gesture and explain that I wanted something to put my food into to carry out the door. It turns out most people (at least here) say bag as in hag, lag, gag. And to them it sounds like I'm asking for a beg. To be fair, if someone walked up to me on the street and asked me for a beg, I'd either hand them a dollar or have to have them repeat it several times. But you'd think at a cafe shop, the person behind the counter would see me with my little to go box and figure it out more quickly.

Anyway.

I never found the perfect word to explain to my friends here how I think bag should be pronounced, until I took this little accent quiz. All of the questions seemed sensible to me and not a problem, until I got to the last one and I pretty much jumped out of my chair in laughing at myself that I knew that was the question that was going to peg me as a Minnesotan by birth.

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: North Central

"North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.

The West
The Midland
Boston
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

3 Comments:

Blogger Celeste said...

I took this quiz yesterday and it said I had a Midland Accent. I'm really crusious as to what the West was, since I'm from Seattle - and I don't think I talk all that different from them.

8:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I took the quiz and I got North Central as well! Yea for Minnesotan accents! Jeremy still gives me a hard time over BAG and BAGEL!
:o)Amanda

7:15 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sweet. I'm from the West. YES!!!!!

1:48 AM  

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