Sometimes individuals may find themselves wondering: "What do you call the long sandwich that contains cold cuts, lettuce, and so on?." Certainly there is a strong regional variation to this type of sandwich, as some people along the Eastern seaboard may refer to it as a "grinder," people in Louisiana may be more likely to refer to it as a "poor boy," and so on. This rather interesting dialect survey, conducted by Professor Bert Vaux (with his colleagues) at Harvard University, examines the spatial distribution of certain dialect phrases for various objects or phenomena, and also looks at the phonology behind certain words, such as caramel or lawyer. Over 30,000 participants took part in the survey, and visitors to the site can view these dialect maps and learn more about the breakdown of the participants in the survey as well.
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