Person's Twitter 'accent' can tell his Location: A Study

Just as a person's accent is a dead giveaway of the region he/she belongs(in most cases), in the same way how a user writes on Twitter too can tell from where he/she belongs.

Jacob Eisenstein and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) School of Computer Science developed an automated method that analyses Twitter word-use and shows that regional dialects appear to be evolving within social media. In simple, people happen to incorporate their regional dialect in their 140 characters musings on real time social network.

How they conducted their study:

The researchers, collected a week's worth of Twitter messages, and collected geotagged (added geographical identification to media such as photographs, video, websites, SMS messages or RSS feeds) messages from Twitter users and then made a database of 9,500 users and 380,000 messages.

What they Found:

Researchers found that certain regional manners and words are already well known and associated with specific areas of the country. For example, a Southerner's "y'all," a Pittsburghers' "yinz," as well as the usual regional divides in references to soda, pop and Coke.

But other phrasing has evolved with social media itself. For instance, in northern California, something that's cool is "koo" in tweets, while in southern California, it's "coo."

In many cities, something is "sumthin," but tweets in New York City favor "suttin."

New Yorkers are "deadass" tired and Angelenos are simply tired "af," which stands for "as f***."

Although these habits may have cultivated due to the limited 140 characters, Eisenstein geography's influence also is apparent. The statistical model could predict the location of a tweeter in the continental United States with a median error of about 300 miles.

Some commonly used Slangs:

Here's a list of some commonly used slang on Twitter: as f*** (very) - LA/Southern California oo: cool - LA/Southern California asho: for sure - LA/Southern California na: going to - Boston ono: I don't know - Northern California ames: lame people - Lake Erie Region oo: cool - Northern California ls: laughing like s*** - Washington D.C

Word for marketers: Now, as you know, tweets can be a sure giveaway; hence if they put conscious effort in not mentioning their location in twitter Bio and profile pic. Then they should also try to consciously look at their tweets before tweeting. --------

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