SeeTweet on Tumblr
freeways (top) & highways (bottom).
I watched an episode of the terrible sitcom “Back to You” in 2007. It was supposedly set in Pittsburgh, but clearly the writers were unaware that there were linguistic differences between the Mid-Atlantic and Southern California. In a traffic report scene, one of the characters reported that there was congestion on the “freeway”. That’s how a Californian would say it, but exactly not how a Pittsburgher would say it; we’d say “highway” (or “parkway”).
The Psy Guy suggested putting this distinction to SeeTweet, and we see that California is the freeway capital. But Seattle, Miami, and a few Great Lakes cities (Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago) have substantial “freeway” usages as well. “Highways” are more evenly distributed, with a focus on the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic coast.
If you’re interested in mapping Twitter usages yourself, you can for free with SeeTweet. SeeTweet generates the maps you see below, showing the most recent tweets containing your search term. If you find anything neat, drop a line to seetweetmaps@gmail.com.
Shoobies.
The AV Club interviewed lexicographer Ben Zimmer on Jersey and Philadelphia slang some time ago, and one particular regional divide he talked about stood out to me. Zimmer said:
What’s cool about that is seeing the way New Jersey gets divided up by the New York sphere of influence and the Philadelphia sphere of influence; you can find a dividing line along the Jersey Shore where people talk about bennys and where people talk about shoobies.
And sure enough, we see that in SeeTweet. The map above shows tweets including the word shoobies. South Jersey and Philly (and even Baltimore and DC) show lots of talk about shoobies, but North Jersey and New York don’t. Unfortunately, there are too many other meanings for bennys to get a clear view of the opposite division, so I didn’t include a map for it.
Pop vs. soda.
I grew up with “pop” being the word for a fizzy beverage. Maybe “soda pop”, but it sure as heck wasn’t “soda”. Then I went to college in the middle of “soda” country and was derided for my hillbilly term. It became part of my style, and to this day, people are surprised when I bring over a two-liter and declare that the pop has arrived.
The distinction between the two terms (as well as “coke” as a generic term for pop) is largely geographic. A large-scale internet survey constructed a map of the preferred term across the U.S., with pop dominating the Midwest and Northwest, soda dominating the Northeast, Milwaukee, St Louis, and the Southwest, and coke gobbling up the South. SeeTweet develops a simplified version of this map with little effort.
Tracing Interstates.
A quick search for “I-79” finds almost all the hits lying along the route of Interstate 79, a highway running from Erie, PA (the northernmost dot) to Charleston, WV (the southernmost dot). For major highways, SeeTweet can identify their basic shape; compare to the actual map of I-79 (in better quality here.)
