I don’t go for all of the quizzes I see on the web, but this one (thanks, Susan) grabbed me, since I grew up in the South (Richmond, Virginia), went to college and lost my accent in the North (RPI, Troy, New York), and have spent the last 22 years in the West. And, unsurprisingly, my answers have me well scattered.

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

20% Dixie

20% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

(There’s 5% missing — I guess that must be when I’m being quiet.)

I just finished Vernor Vinge’s latest, Rainbows End. I could try to summarize the plot, but it would be more in the spirit of the book to suggest that you Google it yourself.

And I guess that’s what bothered me most about the book — I thought Vernor was trying to walk too fine a line between showing a world 20 years closer to the Singularity and making it comprehensible to his audience in 2006. That, and the clear need for a sequel or two to wrap up the loose ends.

I enjoyed the book and recommend it, but I didn’t think it was his best work — that still has to be True Names, which blows me away every time I reread it.