Vocabulary
Trash Can, Garbage Can, Bin or Dustbin?
The United States and Canada split between trash can and garbage can, sometimes within the same city. Britain, Ireland and Australia simply say bin, with rubbish bin, dustbin and wheelie bin used when the type matters.
The question, as everyone in the survey sees it
What do you call the household container for unwanted rubbish?
Think of the general container, not a recycling-specific one.
- Trash can
- Garbage can
- Rubbish bin
- Bin
- Wheelie bin
- Dustbin
- Something else
Who says what
Each accent profile in the survey has an expected answer to this question. Where a profile allows more than one answer, the region genuinely varies.
Trash can
Expected in 5 of the survey's accent profiles.
Rubbish bin
Expected in 8 of the survey's accent profiles.
Bin
Expected in 15 of the survey's accent profiles.
Why this question is in the survey
Vocabulary questions like this one are the fastest way to place a speaker, because the answer is a single conscious word choice rather than a sound people cannot hear in themselves. They also travel: a word that splits England into five regions often splits North America into three quite different ones. Every answer is stored with a coarse map cell for the town you grew up in, and a region is coloured in once at least five people there have answered.
See the full question bank, the accent profiles these answers feed, or how the scoring works.