By Googling, Mikael Parkvall has mapped the various expressions on various blog sites and similar places where writers indicate their place of birth.
For each meeting, he has copied the location into an Excel file.
The map is based on a total of 3042 search hits.
- It's ridiculously labor-intensive and excruciatingly boring, but a really fun result, says Mikael Parkvall, who is a linguist at Stockholm University.
Not sure why people say "bob"
The reason why people say different is unclear.
But "Snowracer" is originally a registered trademark.
- I actually have no idea why it's called "bob" in most of Norrland, says Mikael Parkvall.
Mikael Parkvall does a new search once a month or so, and updates the map as necessary.
- There are some other variants as well, for example "steer sled", and some in Finland say "Stiga" after the manufacturer.