Saint Peters, Missouri
The Saint Peters Accent
Saint Peters sits inside the Midland dialect area, which covers Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and the US Midland, 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 Saint Peters sound like
- “The car needs washed” — “to be” is dropped.
- “Cot” and “caught” sound the same.
- “Pin” and “pen” stay distinct, unlike Texas and the South.
- Plural “you” is “you guys”, not “y’all”.
These are the markers of the Midland accent as a whole. No survey claims every speaker in Saint Peters has all of them — the full Midland profile sets out where the region varies.
How Missouri 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 Missouri’s answers, most common first.
| Question | Answers in Missouri |
|---|---|
| Soda, Pop or Coke? The Map of How America Orders a Fizzy Drink | soda 45% · pop 37% · coke 12% |
| Traffic Circle, Roundabout or Rotary? | traffic circle 37% · roundabout 32% · rotary 3% |
| Water Fountain, Drinking Fountain or Bubbler? | water fountain 57% · drinking fountain 40% · bubbler 0% |
| Lightning Bug or Firefly? | lightning bug 60% · firefly 4% |
| Crawfish, Crawdad or Crayfish? | crawdad 58% · crawfish 30% · crayfish 5% |
| Roly Poly or Potato Bug? | roly poly 79% · potato bug 2% |
| You Guys, Y'all or You All? | you guys 43% · you all 25% · y'all 14% |
| Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner? | catty-corner 66% · kitty-corner 20% |
| Garage Sale or Yard Sale? | garage sale 73% · yard sale 20% |
| Tennis Shoes or Sneakers? | tennis shoes 75% · sneakers 13% |
| Trash Can or Garbage Can? | trash can 66% · garbage can 7% |
| Frosting or Icing? | icing 33% · frosting 20% |
| Frontage Road, Service Road or Access Road? | frontage road 28% · service road 24% · access road 19% |
| Does “Route” Rhyme With “Out” or “Hoot”? | rhymes with "out" 32% · rhymes with "hoot" 22% |
| Caramel: Two Syllables or Three? | with 2 syllables ("car-ml") 64% · with 3 syllables ("carra-mel") 15% |
| Mischievous or Mischievious? | mischievious (4 syllables) 38% · mischievous (3 syllables) 36% |
| Rubber Band, Hair Tie or Elastic? | rubber band 42% · hair tie 19% · (hair) elastic 4% |
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 Saint Peters?
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 Midland American English profile and every other profile in the survey, and shows you where people who answer the way you do actually live.