Fall River, Massachusetts
The Fall River Accent
Fall River sits inside the Boston dialect area, which covers Boston and eastern New England, United States. The nearest other area is New York City, about 198km away.
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What people in Fall River 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 Fall River has all of them — the full Boston profile sets out where the region varies.
Fall River against New York City
Fall River is close enough to the New York City area that the two get confused. These are the questions where the survey expects a different answer on each side.
| Question | Fall River | New York City |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 76% · coke 3% · pop 2% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | rotary 89% · traffic circle 4% · roundabout 4% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 49% · bubbler 36% · drinking fountain 10% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 56% · lightning bug 10% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 50% · crawfish 39% · crawdad 2% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 50% · you all 10% · y'all 4% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 58% · catty-corner 8% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | yard sale 68% · garage sale 16% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | sneakers 94% · tennis shoes 2% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 43% · garbage can 11% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 55% · icing 4% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scrap paper 58% · scratch paper 12% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | access road 27% · service road 26% · frontage road 12% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "hoot" 68% · rhymes with "out" 3% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 57% · with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 22% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 72% · mischievious (4 syllables) 10% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | (hair) elastic 53% · rubber band 15% · hair tie 11% |
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 Fall River
Is your accent from Fall River?
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.