Hobbs, New Mexico
The Hobbs Accent
Hobbs sits inside the Texas dialect area, which covers Texas, 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 Hobbs sound like
- The pin–pen merger — “pin” and “pen” are identical.
- Southern drawl: “bed” stretched towards “bay-ed”.
- Monophthongal “price” in East Texas — “nine” as “nahn”.
- “Y’all” universally, and “fixin’ to” for “about to”.
These are the markers of the Texas accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Hobbs has all of them — the full Texas profile sets out where the region varies.
How New Mexico 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 Mexico’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in New Mexico |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | coke 44% · soda 36% · pop 7% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | traffic circle 38% · roundabout 34% · rotary 6% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 70% · drinking fountain 29% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | firefly 58% · lightning bug 11% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawdad 36% · crawfish 35% · crayfish 19% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 74% · potato bug 4% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 40% · y'all 19% · you all 15% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | catty-corner 45% · kitty-corner 41% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 55% · yard sale 41% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 56% · sneakers 31% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 57% · garbage can 12% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scratch paper 45% · scrap paper 13% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | frontage road 85% · access road 7% · service road 2% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 52% · with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 27% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievious (4 syllables) 36% · mischievous (3 syllables) 35% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | hair tie 41% · rubber band 29% · (hair) elastic 5% |
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 Hobbs?
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 Texas English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.