Wednesday News: Apple’s ongoing legal fight; YA/kidlit authors recite their own reviews; cool US libraries; Fifty Shades as bait; and a fun dialect quiz
Is Apple’s E-Book Fight Worth the Trouble? – Apple, Apple, Apple. A succinct summary of the various ways in which Apple has stalled, obstructed, resisted, and otherwise refused to cooperate with the Justice Department investigation and the price fixing suit. Regardless of one’s feelings about the government, this is starting to look like a tale of epic corporate ego, which, as Yukari Iwatani Kane notes in the piece, is pretty ironic, given Apple’s initial position as Silicon Valley underdog.
“‘In my 20 years of doing oversight work,’ Bromwich noted in one footnote, ‘I have never before had the entity over which I was exercising oversight unilaterally dictate who could be interviewed, even in those instances in which I have dealt with very sensitive matters.'” The New Yorker
One Way Children’s Book Creators Cope With Bad Online Reviews – Has anyone does this for Romance authors? It’s genius. 53 children’s and YA authors read their harshest or most critical reviews out loud, for “comic relief/catharsis.” Watch the videos, captured by author Marc Nobleman, here. And the “It’s all right to cry” song during the title sequence is hilarious, too. Huffington Post
Remarkable libraries across America – Library porn, starting with a mouthwatering photo of the Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins. The Pequot Public Library in Connecticut is lovely, too. Enjoy. Los Angeles Times
How Fifty Shades Of Grey Has Contributed To The Decline Of Book Sales – I’m posting this for two reasons: 1) It contains the interesting factoid that Fifty Shades made up almost 50% of 2012 book sales, and 2) there is absolutely no evidence offered for that idiotic article title, and from what I can tell, the article is simply bait for the film. In regard to the second point, why in the hell would anyone use that line to sell the film? Major irony alert here? Marie Claire
How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk – Interactive Graphic – Given the recent stories about dialects and geography, here’s a fun quiz that purports to locate where you live based on your answers to 25 questions. It had a difficult time placing me, but that’s probably because I’ve lived in so many different places within the U.S. A friend got much better results, though, so give it a try and see how it does. New York Times
I started doing the quiz before I realised it was aimed at Americans, so finished it anyway. It decided that I was from the New York area, which was sort of accurate – I’m from Yorkshire :)
If you’re interested in a break down of what phrase/word gets used most often where, go to this link and then click on each question to see a graphic display.http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html
I did the quiz out of curiosity. Never having set foot in the US of A, I’m apparently a New Englander. Most similar with Boston, Providence and New York. …I can live with that. :)
I was placed in Detroit, Toledo, and Cincinnati. Which isn’t too far off because I live in Chicago (and have been in IL my entire life). The quiz said it was because I call 10/30 Devil’s Night. And use the word “pop” (which is also a Chicago thing).
My husband and I both took it and were impressed that it put us in the right regions, if not exact right cities. My husband was especially pleased that even after 30 years in the Midwest, it placed him in NE New Jersey and E Penn, where he grew up and went to college, respectively.
@kardis – I live in Chicago and grew up in SE Michigan. I say Devil’s Night (and tbat’s why it placed me in Detroit). I’m honestly not sure I’ve ever heard the term in Chicago. It’s something I remember from my childhood in Ann Arbor though.
I think the quiz said it put me in Aurora because of pop (which I think of as a mostly Midwestern thing, except for Milwaukee).
I watched the first of the videos of authors reading their bad reviews – very funny! I especially liked the one where the reviewer complained because her child wanted the book read to her over and over and over… ’cause that’s a bad thing, right?
Hmm. The map said I was from Santa Rosa, CA or Modesto, CA or Boise, ID.
I was born in southern California, but grew up all over as a USAF brat.
I mostly call big truck a semi. Wonder if I had answered lorry as I also call them how that would have ended up .
It got me within 300 miles of where I was born and have lived all my life. That’s pretty good considering that most people hearing me speak think I’m from “up north”.
That test cracked me up. Sometimes it didn’t have the answer I wanted (all of the above, or depends on context) so I ended up taking it twice. The first time it was close (within a few hundred miles. The second time it was SPOT on to the exact city I have lived in for the last 15 years.
I’m really shocked at how accurate the dialect quiz was. It gave me three cities in my state, one in which I lived for 7 years. Calling the grassy strip in between streets “neutral ground” sealed where it would place me. Cool quiz :)
Two cities were father away but the third put me near Chattanooga, which is just 2 hours away. I laughed at the dinner/supper question because when my Dad says dinner he ALWAYS means lunch, while everyone else here seems to use those words interchangeably
Hilarious – it placed me right where I am now (New York).
The quiz nailed it for me. It gave me two Chicago suburbs (neither of which do I actually live in) but I’ve lived in the Chicago area my whole life. I think it might’ve been the “pop” question that does it. Definitely a Chicago thing.
Yep – the dialect map nailed me as an Okie. :)
If any enterprising soul does decide to do a similar review-reading vid for Romance, I would like to participate! But not for long. All I have to do is glare at the camera and say, “Sucked.”
The quiz placed me accurately in the Southern region but not very close to where I grew up or where I live now. When I grew up, all my peers accused me of being a Yankee, too. Plus I wasn’t related to ANYONE in the WHOLE COUNTY besides my immediate family. Cause for suspicion, indeed!
Yeah, count me out if romance authors get together to read their bad reviews. I’ve had enough of authors claiming victimhood at the hands of bully reviewers on that front to find that at all amusing.
As for the dialect quiz, it was fairly accurate for me, placing me as Worcester/Boston/Providence. I’m actually Merrimack Valley/North Shore, but I assume it wasn’t going to be THAT precise. Surprised to find out only MA calls it a “rotary.” I guess the rest of you call it a “traffic circle?”
It accurately put me in the Pacific Northwest; I never lived in any of the cities it suggested for me, but hey, I’m from a small town on the edge of the world and those are the closest big cities, so it did the best it could. It’s been almost fifteen years since I moved to the Northeast, too, but then a lot of the questions it asked weren’t likely to change much with time.
@Ridley: For me it’s a roundabout.
My final placements were Colorado Springs, Denver, or Fresno. Since I spent most of my childhood and teen years in Colorado Springs, it was pretty accurate.
When I took the quiz, it nailed me as an East Coaster. I got Arlington, VA (I’ve lived here in NoVA for more than fifteen years), Baltimore, and Boston. I’ve lived all my life here in Virginia.
The quiz placed my origins accurately in Virginia–so interesting to me because that seems so very long ago now! I don’t really have an accent these days (except when drunk or exhausted) so it does seem to be measuring dialect, not accent.
@Ridley, I remember learning all those strange (to me) words when I went to Massachusetts for college and grad school–rotary, grinder, jimmies, frappe. (And here in Portland, Oregon, where I’ve lived the last 25 years, we call it a “roundabout.”)
@Ridley:
It’s a “roundabout” here. Calling the surface street that parallels a highway a “frontage road” seems to have been key to my location.
Ha, apparently “roundabout” wins for most of the West Coast.
woohoo! my library was on that list (#11). And it is gorgeous. Looks like a small cathedral. I love going there just to see the architecture, and of course the books are nice too.
I took that dialect quiz but it gave me a random set of cities that I’ve never lived in, scattered all over the country. Given that my father is originally from New England, mom from the Deep South, but we lived abroad for my childhood where I went to boarding school with kids from all over the US and Canada…and then I spent time in Missouri, Minnesota, Europe, Africa and now the Mid-Atlantic, I suppose that’s not surprising. They can’t pin me down! :)
I took that quiz awhile ago and it got me because of one word: tree lawn. I have never heard it called anything else other than three lawn, but apparently only Clevelanders call it that. I am talking about that strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. What do other people call it then? I loved the answer that was ‘I have no word for this’. :D
I took the quiz twice and got completely different results the two times. One problem I had answering is that in some categories the words aren’t synonymous, e.g., technically a roundabout and a traffic circle (and a circus) operate in different ways. So what you call it depends on what the driving rules are. (And yes, the world is converging on the roundabout traffic rules, but I’m old and learned the names when there was more variation.)
It put me everywhere from Oakland and LA (right state for my teens, at least) to Houston (nope) and Grand Rapids, Michigan (never been there, don’t know anyone from there).
@Julia:
I’m in the “I have no word for this” camp, but the Wikipedia article lists a bunch of terms for it.
I am glad no one was around when I took the quiz or they would have heard me go “Mary, merry, marry” as I tried to make those three words sound differently because I do pronounce all three the same.
I did that quiz a little while ago and got Buffalo, Boston…and Honolulu. Now, I’m not American, but Buffalo is pretty close to Toronto, where I’ve lived my whole life.
The quiz came up with 3 possible locations for me. None were correct (two were way off), but I’ve lived all around the US and Europe so I’m a bit of a mix.
Buzzfeed had a similar quiz for English accents:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/the-great-english-dialect-quiz
Being a Brit who has lived in the U.S. for 16 years I took the quiz and remarkably despite my complete ignorance of a lot of the phrases used, it placed me in San Jose, CA, (I lived in the Bay Area for 15 years) and Honolulu (I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii this year) So I thought that was quite amazing!
This quiz was spot on for me. The answer was Newark-Philadelphia-Jersey City. It spotted me with the word for the sandwich. Which of course every Philadelphian knows is a “hoagie.”
@Jody Wallace: One of the best reviews I’ve ever received was a negative review. But it was awesome. It was the first review I’d ever received that had animated gifs. And I’m being entirely serious here. I showed it off to all my friends and family.
So if I read mine, I’d have to do it charades style. (That could be fun too!)
the quiz is interesting – it gave me (a Seattle native) Spokane, Salt Lake City & Des Moines. Spokane is located between the places my parents grew up in Washington & Montana. Des Moines is a point on a triangle with my grandmothers birthplaces in Minnesota & Indiana. Salt Lake City – no clue – been there once in my life.
traffic circle or roundabout? not much experience with these – I think of a traffic circle as a small, curbed bed stuck in an intersection to slow drivers down. Roundabouts more for busy intersections the traffic engineers choose not to install lights or stop signs at.
@Julia: I think it’s really funny that you said only Clevelanders call it a tree lawn. I’m not from Cleveland, but my grandparents are, so that’s what I call it too. Who knew it was so regional? :)
It seems like there are more than 25 questions…I’ve taken it twice now and gotten Spokane, WA and Grand Rapids, MI.
Both are close…currently live in Seattle, grew up in Indianapolis and Ann Arbor.
I’m actually shocked at how accurate the dialect quiz was for some of you. I took it and all three of my top cities were in either Arizona or California (I’ve never set foot in either state and have lived nearly all of my life in Ohio.) A bit of an epic fail for me.
@P. J. Dean: It was also spot on for me with New York/Newark/Jersey City (I’m 10 miles or less from each). And while it may be a hoagie in Philly, it’s a sub in NY/NJ, which somehow ended up being my distinct answer. Interesting…
The dialect was perfect – Aurora, Il where I’ve lived for the past 28 years and Milwaukee which is about 30 miles from where I grew up in Wisconsin (far enough away to be pop and water fountain vs soda and bubbler.)
@Julia: I am part of the “I have no word for that” group. Most of our sidewalks go to the curb. There is no strip of green between the curb and the sidewalk. They do have those down where my parents live now. Dad calls it “the verge” (but I have no idea if that’s what other people there call it).
That quiz pinpointed me almost to the zip code I grew up in. It was the “crawdad” that did it.
We always called that strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb the “terrace.” I don’t know why.
We also call them “roundabouts,” but I picked up that terminology in England and at that time I’d never seen one in the US (though I’d been all over it). I’m glad they’re becoming a thing.
I too am pretty impressed by the quiz. I grew up in St. Petersburg, FL, just 250 miles from one of the cities (Ft. Lauderdale). My other two cities were Buffalo and Rochester, odd until you know I went to Syracuse and then lived in Rochester after graduation for 1.5 years. Now I’m going to see what my husband (who actually grew up in Fr. Lauderdale and Miami) gets.
The quiz placed me in the Richmond/Greensboro/Raleigh area because of the word “yard sale.” Hilarious since I grew up in the DMV, which is practically a completely different world from Southern Virginia and North Carolina.
After looking up traffic circles and roundabouts today, I have a better understanding of why tourists can’t seem to manage our rotaries without freezing in terror.
The quiz listed my three towns as Lexington, KY; Louisville,KY; and Knoxville,TN — right region (in the heart of Appalachia) and within 200-350 miles of where I was born and raised. Born and raised southwest West Virginia and now living in southeast Ohio. West Virginia has been called the northernmost Southern state and the southernmost Northern state!!
The quiz placed me in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Buffalo (devil’s night and pop were the defining words), which is pretty close as I have lived most of my life in Southwestern Ontario.
The quiz gave me Glendale, Long Beach, Baltamore the first 2 are part of Los Angeles but very far apart from each other technically but I’m impressed because I’ve lived most of my life since I was 8 in Burbank which is the city next door to Glendale so yeah the quiz works. Baltimore I think cause of one word but I blame that on TV mostly the show Homicide Life on The Street that I was obsessed with in college used to watch it back when court TV still existed and played none stop all day which was based in Baltimore.
Well that dialect quiz was cool… Placed me in Buffalo/Rochester with a strong Seattle as my third. I’m from Toronto… can’t get much closer to Buffalo than that even though the quiz was made for Americans! Very fun.
I’ve been having a great time manipulating my results based on whether I use the terms that are mostly spoken where I live now, or whether I use the terms I grew up with or used to hear used commonly in other parts of the country. I’ve gotten more accuracy that way, for sure. Although for some reason it keeps putting me in Wisconsin, where I’ve never lived.
@Ridley: Even though I learned to drive in New England as a teenager, I’ve never liked driving in Boston. I don’t know how native West Coasters manage it.
The quiz placed me in New York, Yonkers, and Newark/Patterson. New York is where I grew up, Massachusetts is where I lived from 13-18 (and where my family is now), and Philadelphia is where I’ve been for the past 9 years. But I guess you can take the girl out of New York…
I say rotary (my hometown in Mass has one), and I got Newark/Patterson because I picked up “mischief night” from Philly.
Thanks for all the info on the different words for tree lawn! It’s so interesting that there are so many different ways to express the concept. :D
Apparently when you take a Bavarian like me and plant them to live in Texas, I come out as matching with San Jose, Atlanta and Baltimore. I have not lived in either of those places, just Texas and Oklahoma. I guess its not sticking :)
I love that language map. The really interesting thing to me was that, at the end, it pretty much reflected me. I grew up (30+ years) in the Philadelphia area, and that was bright red. But since 1994, I’ve lived below the Mason Dixon line – several years in Florida, and almost 15 in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. My orange-tinted areas were South Florida and DFW! Obviously, and without realizing it, I’ve picked up pronunciations and phrases while living in these areas.
But a long sandwich with meat, cheese and lettuce is still a hoagie, and “mary, merry, and marry” still each have their own sound, dammit! :)