Bellingham, Washington
The Bellingham Accent
Bellingham sits inside the Vancouver dialect area, which covers Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, Canada. No other dialect area in the survey comes close to it.
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What people in Bellingham sound like
- A parkade is a multi-storey car park.
- Athletic shoes are runners.
- “Cot” and “caught” sound the same.
- Canadian raising in “out” and “about”.
These are the markers of the Vancouver accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Bellingham has all of them — the full Vancouver profile sets out where the region varies.
How Washington answered the Harvard Dialect Survey
The Harvard Dialect Survey, collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in 2002–2003, recorded how respondents in every US state answered the same questions. These are Washington’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Washington |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | pop 65% · soda 23% · coke 3% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | roundabout 42% · traffic circle 36% · rotary 3% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | drinking fountain 66% · water fountain 31% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 65% · lightning bug 8% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawfish 36% · crawdad 33% · crayfish 20% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | potato bug 56% · roly poly 13% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 57% · you all 9% · y'all 4% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 87% · catty-corner 2% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 62% · yard sale 31% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 67% · sneakers 18% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | garbage can 53% · trash can 13% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 51% · icing 4% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scratch paper 52% · scrap paper 6% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | frontage road 30% · access road 18% · service road 12% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "out" 35% · rhymes with "hoot" 15% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 58% · with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 18% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievious (4 syllables) 36% · mischievous (3 syllables) 34% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 36% · hair tie 19% · (hair) elastic 7% |
Data from the Harvard Dialect Survey (Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, 2002–2003), used under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence. A self-selected sample from two decades ago: how people spoke then, not a census.
Is your accent from Bellingham?
There is no way to answer that from a description. The test asks 29 questions about the words you use and how you say them, scores your answers against the Vancouver / Western Canadian English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.