Speculative Grammarian Podcast

Grey Duck or Goose?—Mapping variation in a children’s game in Minnesota; by Sven Slater and Ollie Bickford; From Volume CLXIII, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, January 2012 — Research Question / Last year, a new kid named Tyler P. joined our fourth grade class. Tyler was from Illinois or some other southern state, and she told us that down there kids play “duck, duck, goose,” instead of “duck, duck, grey duck” like we do here in Minnesota. We thought this was strange, even for the South, but then we talked about it and discovered that even some Minnesota kids in our own class had heard this at their grandmas’ houses. Our teacher, Mr. Olson, said we could study isoglosses to learn about that, so we decided to do that for this year’s science fair. (Read by Jesse Slater and Elizabeth Slater.)