El Centro, California
The El Centro Accent
El Centro sits inside the California dialect area, which covers California, United States. No other dialect area in the survey comes close to it.
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What people in El Centro sound like
- “Cot” and “caught” sound the same.
- Fronted “goose” vowel — “dude”, “food”, “too”.
- Uptalk: rising pitch at the end of statements.
- Quotative “like”: “and I was like…”.
These are the markers of the California accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in El Centro has all of them — the full California profile sets out where the region varies.
How California 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 California’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in California |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 69% · coke 11% · pop 6% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | traffic circle 37% · roundabout 37% · rotary 5% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | drinking fountain 64% · water fountain 33% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 63% · lightning bug 9% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawfish 36% · crawdad 31% · crayfish 21% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 37% · potato bug 13% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 55% · you all 10% · y'all 7% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 62% · catty-corner 17% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 64% · yard sale 29% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 55% · sneakers 30% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 41% · garbage can 19% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 39% · icing 8% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scratch paper 49% · scrap paper 7% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | frontage road 56% · service road 10% · access road 9% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 37% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 35% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 39% · mischievious (4 syllables) 33% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 38% · hair tie 21% · (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 El Centro?
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 California English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.