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and word usage, plotting the responses on a map. A boundary
beyond which a form is never or always used is an isogloss. When

many isoglosses line up, we can identify a dialect region. For
example, the boundary between the Upper North and the Lower

North dialect is marked by isoglosses for the pronunciation of
“greazy” (with a z pronunciation) versus “greasy” (with the “s”

unvoiced), calling an insect a “snake feeder” versus a “dragonfly,”

calling “Sook!” to the cows or not, and calling a tree whose sap you

get syrup from a “sugar tree” rather than a “maple [‘meɪpl] tree.” In

each of these cases, the more southern term is listed first, and none
of these are consistently found above that Upper North/Lower North

isogloss. Various people pronounce the “wolf” in different ways:

some will pronounce the word “wolf” and others “woof” (without
the l). Those who drop the l will almost certainly be from the Upper

North dialect zone.
Since the 1930s, linguists have been collecting isoglosses

throughout America. For example, in Monmouth County, NJ, is on
the one hand part of the Philadelphia dialect region. On the other

hand it is linked to New York City. They say, for example, “water”

as “wood-er,” they do not pronounce the “h” in “huge” or “human,”
and they pronounce the words “orange,” “horrible,” and “forest” as

if they were spelled “arr-inge,” “harr-ible,” and “farrest.”
Other famous isoglosses are “bucket”/“pail,” “faucet”/“tap,” and

“quarter of” versus “quarter to.” Various alternative names for “See-
Saw” provide a particularly interesting example. Although the

unmarked term “See-Saw” is recognized throughout America, there

are alternative forms on the East Coast. “Teeter-totter,” for example,
is a heavily Northern word; the form is “Teeter” or “Teeter Board”

in New England and New York state and “Teeter-Totter” in New

Jersey. There are almost no “Teeter-” forms in Pennsylvania, and if
you go to western West Virginia and down into western North

Carolina there is a band of “Ridey-Horse” that heads almost straight
south. This pattern suggests a New England origin or importation of

the term that spread down the coast and a separate development in

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