Dialect maps have been a standard research tool for linguists and philologists for a long time, but it’s becoming much easier to compile them. Now you can build yourself a nice website and let other people do the work for you. Of course you need some people to visit your site, so it helps if you get the New York Times to write about it. Harvard Linguistics Professor Bert Vaux has built just such a site, loaded with questions that geographically pin you down as a speaker of English in North America, automatically mapping the result. These questions include the venerable Soda vs. pop? and more than a hundred others. It makes for fascinating browsing.
Some of the maps are disappointing because you expect to see a more dramatic demarcation. I expect, for example, waiting in line vs. waiting on line to show a big “waiting on line” region around New York City and New Jersey. It doesn’t.
Some of the maps are very satisfying. I live in the land of the rotary, and if you look at this map you’ll see exactly where that is: rotary vs. traffic circle. I was surprised how often New England was the strongly contrasting region (see the maps for Aunt Mary vs. Ahhnt Mary and sneakers vs. tennis shoes). This suggests that New England doesn’t mix much with the rest of the country.
Finally we come to doughnuts vs. whipping shitties (i.e. driving around in circles). This latter seems to be exclusive to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Can this be real, or is the good professor being hacked? Hmmmm…. you know, where I grew up we referred to flatulence as “looking for Mr. Goodbar” or “chatting with the Vice President.” If you “remember” this too, why don’t you join me in telling Professor Vaux? It could really put us on the map. Or we could just grab a beer and whip some shitties together.
I’ll close with a question of my own: have you ever referred to a wool hat as a toboggan? I did when I was growing up (North Carolina), but people in Massachusetts think this is a hilariously funny indication of mental deficiency.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 
If you wear a toboggan on your head, that’s a sledding accident.
Up in Canada they call that hat a ‘toque’ (pronounced ‘toook’ with a long ‘oo’, not the vowel in the past tense of the verb ‘to take’, but as always I digress).
The word ‘toque’ was somewhere between uncommon and rare in the Minneapolis area when I was growing up, but most people knew what it meant, as there were just enough Canucks around to keep us on our toes, eh.
–JMike
Yes to the toboggan, often with an emphasis on the TOE part. We called the hats Snoogens too. Ever heard that one.
Never heard of “snoogens”. But the emphasis on the first syllable reminds me of my southern roots. TO-boggan. UM-brella. PE-can. VER-mont.
Southern speaking is relaxed speaking. In terms of where to put the stress, it’s just a matter of getting the hard work out of the way so you can relax with the rest of the word.
I got here by googling whipping shitties. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missusing the term. Interestingly enough I am from Minnesota.
Rock on!
yes rock on indeed. i like gettin drunk and whippin shitties in the back yard. thats how ohio’ns get er done. whooo