13 Words That Prove People From Illinois Definitely Have an Accent

In Illinois, we drink pop, we put on our tennis shoes, and we say "ope" when we bump into you on the way to the bubbler.

Not only do we have plenty of our own Midwestern phrases, here in Illinois we actually have an accent. It might not feel like it, but when you take a trip out of town, other people will definitely point it out.

So much so, sometimes people from out of town don't even understand us.

Like most accents, there are definitely some words that highlight the accent more than others. Harvard actually did a study on it a while ago. So if you're still sitting here thinking, "I don't have an accent." This list is here to tell you that you actually do.

1. 89.20% of Illinoisans pronounce "Aunt" as "ant." Only 3.65% say it like "Awnt."
2. 58.12% of Illinoisans pronounce "Been" as "Bin." 35.12% say it like "Ben."
3. 59.55% pronounce "Caramel" as "Car-ml." 18.95% pronounce it as "Carra-ml." 16.1% use both.
4. 64.66% of us pronounce "Coupon" as "Coo-pon." 33.43% say "Cyoo-pon."
5. 53.68% of Illinoisans pronounce "Crayon" as "Cray-ahn." 25.33% say "Cran."
6. 88.88% pronounce "Creek" with the long e, while 3.31% say "Crick." Another 5.23% use it both ways.
7. 82.31% of us pronounce "Lawyer" as "Loyer," while 14.33% say "Law-yer."
8. 49.29% of Illinoisans pronounce "Mayonnaise" as "May-uh-Naze," but 40.43% of us say "Man-aze." 7.59% use both.
9. 65.76% of us use two syllables to pronounce "Poem," while 34.24% use only one syllable.
10. 53.93% pronounce "Really" as "Reely," but 25.68% of Illinoisans say "Rilly."
11. 38.23% of us pronounce the word "Realtor" as "Reel-tur," but 39.15% say it with three syllables, as in "Reel-Uh-Tur."
12. 77.83% of Illinois pronounce the second vowel in "pajamas" with an "A" similar to "jam" instead of an "A" similar to "father"
13. 79.27% of Illinoisans put the emphasis on umBRELLa vs. UMbrella

One thing I do know for sure, there's no nice like "Midwest nice".