Despite the constant interaction made possible by internet connectivity, people still use words differently depending on where they live. You’ve seen the maps of where we say pop vs. soda, and y’all vs. you guys. Now you can make your own maps to explore the regional variation of words with the Great American Word Mapper at Quartz.
The addictively usable tool, designed by Nikhil Sonnad, builds on the work of researchers Jack Grieve, Andrea Nini, and Diansheng Guo. It uses geolocation and statistical clustering techniques to map some of the top 100,000 words used on Twitter in 2014.
You can look at names, sports teams, slang, naughty words, or anything you might expect to see used on Twitter (in 2014). It’s incredibly fun to play with. Here are a few comparisons I did.
See what other people have found and shared on Twitter.
Check out the Great American Word Mapper yourself at Quartz.
January 9, 2017 – 7:00pm