Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide by Josh Katz
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016
Did you know that your answers to just a handful of questions can predict the zip code of where you grew up? Speaking American offers a visual atlas of the American vernacular—who says what and where they say it—revealing our history, our regions, and the language that divides and unites us.
Josh Katz’s book Speaking American is a gem for anyone interested in language and travel. The book is divided into chapters loosely focused on different areas: how we live, what we eat, how we sound, where we go, things we see. The artistic watercolor graphs show how fluidly our dialects meld across geographic areas.
What do you call the insects that glow at night? In Manhattan, you’ll call them fireflies—but move to Staten Island or New Jersey, and you’ll more likely call them lightning bugs.
Are you going to a garage sale, yard sale, rummage sale, or tag sale? It depends, of course, on where you live. But if you say you’re going to a stoop sale, you’re in New York City.
Scratch paper or scrap paper? Chocolate sprinkles or jimmies? Garbage can or trash can? Will you mow the lawn, cut the grass, or mow the grass? Are you wearing tennis shoes or sneakers? (Neither, if you’re in Chicago or Cincinnati. In those cities, you’re wearing gym shoes.)
The author even includes sections on how to pretend you’re from a particular area. According to Katz, if someone knows what a potato bug is and calls a mountain lion a cougar, there’s more than an eighty percent chance that person is from Oregon or Washington State.
This coffee-table-sized book is certain to inspire conversation. So, when you head out today, will you be traveling on a freeway, highway, expressway, or thruway?
