Concord, New Hampshire
The Concord Accent
Concord sits inside the Boston dialect area, which covers Boston and eastern New England, United States. The nearest other area is Chicago, about 207km away.
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What people in Concord sound like
- Non-rhotic — “park the car” as “pahk the cah”.
- Intrusive R between vowels: “the idear of it”.
- A broad, fronted vowel in “park”, “aunt” and “half”.
- Local vocabulary: “bubbler” for a drinking fountain, “wicked” as an intensifier.
These are the markers of the Boston accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Concord has all of them — the full Boston profile sets out where the region varies.
Concord against Chicago
Concord is close enough to the Chicago area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Concord | Chicago |
|---|---|---|
| When you say “car” by itself, do you pronounce an R sound at the end? | “car” ends in a vowel, with no R sound | the R at the end of “car” is pronounced |
| How do “Mary”, “marry”, and “merry” compare in your natural accent? | “Mary”, “marry” and “merry” all sound different, or two of “Mary”, “marry” and “merry” match and one differs | “Mary”, “marry” and “merry” all sound the same |
How New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in New Hampshire |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 73% · coke 3% · pop 2% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | rotary 46% · traffic circle 42% · roundabout 5% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 58% · bubbler 28% · drinking fountain 12% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 47% · lightning bug 13% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 52% · crawfish 38% · crawdad 2% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 56% · y'all 5% · you all 3% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 62% · catty-corner 7% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | yard sale 79% · garage sale 12% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | sneakers 94% · tennis shoes 2% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 41% · garbage can 16% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 50% · icing 6% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scrap paper 59% · scratch paper 13% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "hoot" 61% · rhymes with "out" 2% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 67% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 11% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 67% · mischievious (4 syllables) 11% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | (hair) elastic 53% · hair tie 15% · rubber band 10% |
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.
Dialect areas near Concord
Is your accent from Concord?
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 Boston / Eastern New England English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.