Study finds people tweet in geographical accents

A study of linguistic patterns among Twitter users has revealed that people in different areas have distinctly identifiable quirks that can be used to determine their geographical region.

Apparently, “suttin” often stands in for “something” among New York City residents reticent to type or expend an additional three characters using the microblogging service. (Which, as most of you know, has a 140 character limit.) To emphasize a point in lieu of “very,” west coast types tend to use “hella,” whereas New Yorkers are said to use- another one new on this lifelong metro area resident- “OD.” (Overdose? Overdrive?)

While such offensively abbreviated tweets must have been painful for linguists to comb through, they lot of them actually seem grateful for the opportunity to observe the grammatically challenged in their natural setting. Muffy Siegel, a linguist at Temple University, commented:

“Social media have proved a bonanza to linguists, because it gives us access to people writing and speaking in a very natural way,” Siegel said. “We didn’t have access to people’s social interactions this way before without sneaking up on them with tape recorders.”

Scott Kiesling, associated professor of linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh, told the AP that they team aims to determine whether- and yes, he actually phrased it this way- the usages spread like “pancake batter hitting a pan or hop from city to city.”