Blacksburg, Virginia
The Blacksburg Accent
Blacksburg sits inside the Southern Appalachian dialect area, which covers Tennessee, Kentucky, western North Carolina and West Virginia, United States. No other dialect area in the survey comes close to it.
Take the quiz and see how close your accent is →
What people in Blacksburg sound like
- Monophthongal “price”: “ride” as “rahd”, “time” as “tahm”.
- The pin–pen merger — “pin” and “pen” sound the same.
- “Y’all” for a group, and “all y’all” for emphasis.
- Double modals: “might could”, “used to could”.
These are the markers of the Southern Appalachian accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Blacksburg has all of them — the full Southern Appalachian profile sets out where the region varies.
How Virginia 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 Virginia’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Virginia |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 61% · coke 20% · pop 5% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | traffic circle 56% · roundabout 18% · rotary 5% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 92% · drinking fountain 7% · bubbler 1% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawfish 52% · crayfish 27% · crawdad 13% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 55% · potato bug 10% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | y'all 44% · you guys 25% · you all 19% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | catty-corner 48% · kitty-corner 29% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | yard sale 75% · garage sale 22% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 47% · sneakers 44% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 61% · garbage can 9% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | service road 42% · access road 28% · frontage road 11% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 59% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 21% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 49% · mischievious (4 syllables) 25% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 32% · hair tie 19% · (hair) elastic 8% |
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 Blacksburg?
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 Southern Appalachian English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.