Dalton, Georgia
The Dalton Accent
Dalton 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 Dalton 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 Dalton has all of them — the full Southern Appalachian profile sets out where the region varies.
How Georgia 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 Georgia’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Georgia |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | coke 61% · soda 20% · pop 2% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | traffic circle 37% · roundabout 28% · rotary 5% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 95% · drinking fountain 5% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | lightning bug 50% · firefly 8% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawfish 60% · crawdad 24% · crayfish 9% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 82% · potato bug 1% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | y'all 71% · you guys 12% · you all 9% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | catty-corner 64% · kitty-corner 17% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | yard sale 64% · garage sale 30% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 65% · sneakers 26% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 59% · garbage can 15% |
| Frosting or Icing? | icing 33% · frosting 19% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | access road 52% · frontage road 16% · service road 15% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 58% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 21% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 44% · mischievious (4 syllables) 31% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 44% · hair tie 13% · (hair) elastic 6% |
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 Dalton?
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.