Another dialect question for DU's New Englanders: police car, squad car,

[smoogatz]

prowler, other?

For the book I'm working on. Thanks again for your help.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

1. Police car

Cruiser

Black and white

[Bluebear]

2. Cruiser or police car

Never prowler or squad car.

[Warpy]

3. Cop car, police car

I never heard anything else except a few obscenities.

[Newshues]

4. cruiser or car

and it largely depends on the governmental level of law enforcement that we are talking about.

It's always a state police cruiser.

it's more likely than not a city police car.

it's a fairly even mix for county level.

If you aren't from New England and aren't familiar with its governmental structure you'll need to bare in mind that New England generally has weak county governments and strong local governments unlike the way it is in the rest of the country. Things that someone in the south or west would assume is handled by the county would likely be handled by the local municipality unless the local was so small as to be dependent on the county. Where the local is large enough to handle its own affairs what it needs help with generally comes from the state.

[XRubicon]

5. Cruise-ah, Statey, Cop Cah

[bicentennial_baby]

6. Cop car

[lurky]

8. Yes, "Cop car".

"Staties" if it's the state police. This would be Boston area. You should really narrow down your location, though. The dialect can change quite a bit throughout the region, even over small distances.

[bicentennial_baby]

10. It's the same in NW MA...

:)

[Canuckistanian]

7. I heard the term "prowler" from the movie "Fargo"

I'd never heard that before.

Is this common in the midwest or is it just in ND?

[Bluerthanblue]

9. cop cah- cruisah-

cruiser would be the most common IMO

[ruggerson]

11. definitely cop car

there's a cop car in front of the packy.

[smoogatz]

12. Thanks, everybody.

Cruiser/cop car it is.

[madokie]

13. A f__king cop car

but thats us here in Oklahoma