Manitowoc, Wisconsin
The Manitowoc Accent
Manitowoc sits inside the Chicago dialect area, which covers Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, 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 Manitowoc sound like
- Raised “trap” vowel — “cat” towards “kee-at”.
- Fronted “lot” vowel — “block” towards “black”.
- “Cot” and “caught” stay distinct.
- Chicago-specific vocabulary: “gym shoes”, “pop”, “the expressway”.
These are the markers of the Chicago accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Manitowoc has all of them — the full Chicago profile sets out where the region varies.
How Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 55% · pop 38% · coke 1% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | roundabout 36% · traffic circle 20% · rotary 6% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | bubbler 54% · drinking fountain 23% · water fountain 20% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crayfish 56% · crawfish 28% · crawdad 6% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 56% · you all 7% · y'all 6% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | kitty-corner 87% · catty-corner 2% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 44% · yard sale 11% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 55% · sneakers 18% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | garbage can 50% · trash can 18% |
| Frosting or Icing? | frosting 60% · icing 4% |
| Scratch Paper or Scrap Paper? | scratch paper 41% · scrap paper 24% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | frontage road 63% · service road 12% · access road 8% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "out" 40% · rhymes with "hoot" 18% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 70% · with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 12% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievous (3 syllables) 37% · mischievious (4 syllables) 36% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 36% · hair tie 19% · (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 Manitowoc?
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 Chicago / Inland North English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.