A couple of years ago, some fun dialect maps were making the rounds on the Internet, which I blogged about because one of the questions was about what people call freshwater crustaceans that look like small lobsters.
Those maps were based on the Harvard dialect survey, which ended 2003. This is now being followed by the Cambridge dialect survey, which started 2007, and what people call Astacidea is again one of the questions.
The map is interesting to check out. I think “lobster” looks far more common in the map than in the data, probably because of the layering of the data points.
Interestingly, the gap in use between “crayfish” and “crawfish” widened between the Harvard and Cambridge surveys. But in both surveys, “crayfish” is more northeast, “crawdad” is midwestern, and “crawfish” is southern. I wonder how “fish” metamorphosed into “dad” in the central U.S.
Related posts
The crayfish / crawfish / crawdad war
External links
Harvard survey: Asticidea map
Cambridge survey: Astacidea map
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