Regionalism's

[sundial]

momnem--my mother and her peers

Karen, I noticed how so many say mama around here. Another southern thing wouldn't you say?

[Tuckervill]

Mama is definitely a southern thang, but you'll hear it all over.

eta: I just remembered something. My daddy (that's a Southern thing, too--in Chicago I would have said dad) called his mother Maw (we all did), but whenever he referred to her in the 3rd person, he'd say mama, as if it were a title. "We're going down to see Mama."

Karen

[coyote]

I'm not sure which is the regionalism:
in AZ its an arroyo - CO its a wash - from wikipedia, dry creek bed.

[sundial]

I'
in AZ its an arroyo - CO its a wash - from wikipedia, dry creek bed.

In Texas, it's known as a "crick".

[Crankin]

We called it a wash in AZ, too, but I know what arroyo means. My parents got their car "stuck in a wash," when they tried to cross it after a flash flood...

Red Rhodie, your list made me laugh. I think about three fourths of those apply to eastern MA also, with a few that are very specific to RI. I think that most of those expressions you find in blue collar towns in eastern MA, especially where people don't move away and there's generations of families living in close proximity. When I was a kid, everyone used those expressions, but I doubt I'd hear one in Concord, today! Even my students in Hudson don't have any accents or use a lot of regional words (except maybe bubbler), but quite a few of their parents do. Again, this is a community where people stay put and often live down the street from their parents, aunts, uncles.

[SlowButSteady]

In South Carolina, it's a gulley

[Aggie_Ama]

In Texas, it's known as a "crick".

Not in my area, it is a creek.

[sundial]

Not in my area, it is a creek.

You're close to civilization. I lived out in the back 40.

[OakLeaf]

Spelled "creek," pronounced "crick," the formal name on maps is "run."

[Crankin]

I can always tell when someone is not from New England, because they refer to Boston as "the city." We say "town," as in "I'm going in town for dinner." A native would never say "into town," as it seems like we abbreviate everything. So, "in town" is like going "down the Cape," or "down Maine," or (not heard much around where I live) " down the corner."
My husband says "city," which marks him as the Philadelphian he is. My NY friends call it the city, too.

As a kid, we called the evening meal supper. Lunch was lunch, but when I moved to Florida, some people called it dinner. I stopped saying supper years ago.
My kids have no accent; they speak standard American (midwest) English. When we moved to MA from AZ they both sounded like they were from Chicago, but that sort of flattened out as the years went on. The younger one started talking with a thick Boston accent from listening to friends and teachers, but we put a stop to that. He was doing it on purpose to fit in. All I know is that after moving away when I was 15 and working really hard to rid myself of that accent, I still do not pronounce "r's" at the end of words naturally. It is a forced sound. If I am angry or rushed, the accent comes out. One time, on one of my first job interviews for a teaching position in AZ, I introduced myself to the principal, shook his hand, and he looked at me and said "Cape Cod." I was like, "huh?" He had detected that whiff of accent no matter how hard I tried to get rid of it!