Some interesting discussion of the "metonymic two step"

"In My Language I Am Smart"

Here's quite a listening experience: Dragan Todorovic's poem "In My Language I Am Smart". It's got to be the most powerful expression in poetry I've come across of the linguistic alienation involved in immigrating to a foreign land of a foreign tongue. I teach immigrants English for a good part of my living, so it's quite emblematic of an experience I deal with a lot. I'm sure the memory of this poem will stay with me for good.

MY YANKEE CANADIAN ENGLISH

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% General American English

35% Yankee

10% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

It was fun to do this, as I'm from Ontario, Canada (and have spent the last decade and a half in Quebec). Actually, sweetened carbonated drinks we don't call either soda or pop (the only two choices on this quiz), but soft drinks (but I chose "pop" because sometimes I hear that and we do definitely say pop machine); and we generally say running shoes up here rather than either tennis shoes or sneakers (I chose sneakers because I think I have said that once or twice, altho it tastes distictly USA on my tongue). An easy class we call a bird course up here, not a crib course or blow-off or whatever (I clicked blow off, because that's the only one that was at all possible in these climes), and we do not cover our houses with toilet paper up here. We use Christmas lights. All that may have scotched the results. I wonder where 10% Dixie came from??? Anyway, you can complete the quiz yourself at:

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?