65% of Americans say ‘Thanksgiving’ this way. Are you one of them?
Did you know that there are at least three ways that Americans pronounce the word "Thanksgiving?" According to a Harvard study, this is the case.
The Harvard Dialect Survey, which ended in 2003, surveyed more than 30,000 people in the United States.
Though the word remains the same, the data found that 26% of Americans emphasize the "thanks" whilst a sizeable 65% of respondents place their emphasis on the "giv" of Thanksgiving.
In addition, 8% of people switch them up situationally and 0.49% of respondents say the word a different way entirely (most of them live in Delaware or Alaska).
Here’s a breakdown of how each state pronounces the holiday.
States where the majority say "THANKSgiving":
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Georgia
- Mississippi
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
File: Girl celebrates Thanksgiving dinner (Credit: skynesher / E+ / Getty Images)
States where the majority say "ThanksGIVing":
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- District of Columbia
- Delaware
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Maryland
- Maine
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Montana
- North Dakota
- Nebraska
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- Nevada
- New York
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Dakota
- Utah
- Virginia
- Vermont
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- West Virginia
- Wyoming
"In general, Americans have first-syllable stress for Thanksgiving and common knowledge is that the southerners say THANKSgiving while northerners say thanksGIVing," Sylvia Johnson, the head of methodologies at language specialist company Preply said. "This is consistent with an overall tendency, also manifest in cases like UMbrella vs. umBRELla."
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This story was reported from Los Angeles.