farkleberries :: chicago style culture warbloggery

Friday, March 17, 2006

Friday Random Ten: The Northern Cities Shift Edition

by Lenka Reznicek [permalink]

Northern Cities Shift is the linguistic name for the English dialect spoken around the Great Lakes, from Chicago to Rochester, NY. This is why native Chicawgoans and Raachesterites often sound a little, well, different. I think of it as a "Reverse Boston" accent. What's extremely interesting is that a map of American dialects looks a lot like a weather map: maybe the answer really is blowing in the wind.

Did you know vibraphonist extraordinaire Cal Tjader once recorded a cover of the Banana Splits "Tra La La Song"? I was listening to his album yesterday, and the melody struck me as oddly familiar.