US dialect atlas
Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic?
Rubber band leads 38 states, which reads oddly to anyone who distinguishes the office supply from the hair one. Hair tie and elastic split the remainder, elastic concentrated in the northeast.
- rubber band leads 38 states
- hair tie leads 6 states
- (hair) elastic leads 6 states
- no listed answer leads 1 state
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State by state
Share of respondents in each state giving each answer. Percentages do not sum to 100: the survey offered answers this map does not name, and they are left out rather than folded into one of the three.
| State | rubber band | hair tie | (hair) elastic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 38.8% ◀ | 16.4% | 4.1% |
| Alaska | 23.3% | 18.6% | 4.7% |
| Arizona | 33.9% ◀ | 27.7% | 5.1% |
| Arkansas | 45.3% ◀ | 14.1% | 5.5% |
| California | 38.1% ◀ | 20.7% | 6.5% |
| Colorado | 33.6% | 34.2% ◀ | 6.6% |
| Connecticut | 20.8% | 14.7% | 44.2% ◀ |
| Delaware | 22.7% ◀ | 20.5% | 18.2% |
| Florida | 30.9% ◀ | 25.3% | 6.9% |
| Georgia | 44.4% ◀ | 13.3% | 5.5% |
| Hawaii | 52.7% ◀ | 18.2% | 10.9% |
| Idaho | 42.1% ◀ | 19.1% | 11.1% |
| Illinois | 40.9% ◀ | 16.8% | 6.7% |
| Indiana | 35.5% ◀ | 21.4% | 5.2% |
| Iowa | 41.5% ◀ | 24% | 6.8% |
| Kansas | 38.4% ◀ | 22% | 6.3% |
| Kentucky | 40.2% ◀ | 12.9% | 5.9% |
| Louisiana | 49.8% ◀ | 12.6% | 3.3% |
| Maine | 14.7% | 12.6% | 59% ◀ |
| Maryland | 32.8% ◀ | 19.8% | 9.3% |
| Massachusetts | 15.4% | 10.9% | 53.2% ◀ |
| Michigan | 31.1% ◀ | 30% | 7.3% |
| Minnesota | 34.8% ◀ | 14.9% | 6.6% |
| Mississippi | 43% ◀ | 9.4% | 3.7% |
| Missouri | 42.1% ◀ | 19.3% | 4.2% |
| Montana | 43.6% ◀ | 24.4% | 5.6% |
| Nebraska | 36.1% ◀ | 22.2% | 8.9% |
| Nevada | 28.6% | 36.5% ◀ | 11.1% |
| New Hampshire | 10.1% | 14.7% | 53.2% ◀ |
| New Jersey | 27.9% ◀ | 20% | 18.4% |
| New Mexico | 28.8% | 40.5% ◀ | 4.5% |
| New York | 31% ◀ | 18.7% | 13.1% |
| North Carolina | 36.8% ◀ | 16.1% | 7% |
| North Dakota | 28.2% | 29.1% ◀ | 4.6% |
| Ohio | 36.4% ◀ | 22% | 7.2% |
| Oklahoma | 44.8% ◀ | 15.7% | 5.4% |
| Oregon | 29.6% ◀ | 28.1% | 6.3% |
| Pennsylvania | 31.6% ◀ | 20.5% | 6.9% |
| Rhode Island | 17.7% | 12.5% | 55.2% ◀ |
| South Carolina | 41.1% ◀ | 12.4% | 4.7% |
| South Dakota | 29.7% | 41.2% ◀ | 3.5% |
| Tennessee | 35.5% ◀ | 13.2% | 6.8% |
| Texas | 43.4% ◀ | 16.7% | 4% |
| Utah | 24.2% | 8.9% | 33.8% ◀ |
| Vermont | 25.7% | 32.4% ◀ | 20.3% |
| Virginia | 32.2% ◀ | 19.1% | 7.9% |
| Washington | 36.4% ◀ | 19.3% | 7.2% |
| Washington, D.C. | 30.4% ◀ | 13.9% | 15.2% |
| West Virginia | 40.7% ◀ | 11.5% | 5.3% |
| Wisconsin | 36% ◀ | 19.4% | 5.7% |
| Wyoming | 43.9% ◀ | 30.3% | 3% |
Where this data comes from
The map above is drawn from the Harvard Dialect Survey, collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in 2002–2003. It asked 122 questions and recorded, for each one, the share of respondents in every US state who gave each answer. It is a large self-selected sample rather than a census, and it is now two decades old — treat it as a well-supported picture of how people spoke then, not a measurement of today.
Data used under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence: attribution and share-alike, non-commercial. DialectGuessr’s own survey data is separate and is described on the about page.