Minnesota:From the Perspective of a Nomad, Part 4

Everybody knows that people in Minnesota have an accent. It’s a heavy accent, especially on the vowels. I wanted to say to the cashier the first weekend I was here if she asked in a plastic bag would be okay, “Um, sure. But it’s a baaag.”

It’s almost as if they get their O’s and A’s mixed up. I lived with one of the girls I work with the first five weeks I was here. She was born and raised in Minnesota…and you can tell. The funniest exchange we had was the first week I was here and we were headed home from work.

“I wish I had a crackpot,” Andrea said.

“A what?” I asked…for I do know what a “crackpot” is and I wasn’t thinking Andrea wanted to started growing crack in the basement.

“A crackpot,” she repeated.

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know. A slow cooker.”

“Oh!” The light dawned. “A crockpot,” I said, careful to hold my O’s for all they were worth.

The joke became even funnier when I got a crockpot the next week for my birthday….

There have been many times I can’t understand what Andrea is trying to tell me, but she has the same trouble with my accent. The difference is, she envies me mine. I’m practicing every day to keep my Southern accent – I don’t want hers.

The rounded O’s, heavy A’s and funny sounding “Yahs” make listening to the people in the office odd. Another overused phrase is, “Does that make sense?” I think that comes more from the Dakotas, but I’ve gotten a little tired of hearing it…for since I am learning new things, I hear it A LOT!!!! But the most overused word in all of Minnesota is “so”. It comes at the end of about every sentence.

“I took my dog on a walk, so…” 

“I put that on your desk, Melissa, so…”

“It’s snowing again, so…”

I have yet to not sit and wait for the sentence to be finished. Worse, I thought I overused that word and have been trying to stop. This was not a good move to break that habit.

Alongside their funny accent are names I’ve never heard or thought died off in the 19^th century with the immigrants from the Scandinavian countries. First, every other person up here has a last name that ends in “son” or “sen”: Anderson, Larson, Johnson, Peterson, Haraldson, etc. You won’t believe how many I have in my database! And then there are the first names I’ve only read in books from the 1800s like Lars or Anders, which are top contenders for most popular boy’s names. I’ve learned a couple of girls names I’ve never even heard before: Ardis and Arlys. I think they’re rather pretty, although I can’t say “Arlys” without thinking of Old Yeller.

Growing up, my mother always said we were bilingual: Southern and Yankee. I am now adding a third language to my vocabulary: Nothern/Midwestern. But be forewarned: I’m not quite ready to interpret yet.