GUEST,adavis@truman.edu
isogloss - what a good word. I used to be able to place a person in the Black Country (mid - England - industrial - NOT Birmingham) to the nearest town and in years gone by (20c) there were people (eg salesmen) who could place them to the nearest street.

Curiously I got confused by Dudley and Coventry until I realised there was a mass migration in the mid 19c from Dudley to Coventry.

I may have been losing the ability with age or the homogenisation that is the media but I do feel that living in Canada and then NZ killed that ability very quickly. And yes I did take on a lot of Kiwi in the first few months - it is called survival. Too right mate!