I Do Not Have an Accent!

Apparently there are some of you that think that I have an accent. By comparison I know that I have neither a Southern, Bostonian, Cheesehead/Fargo or New York accent... Which is not to say that I don't have one at all, but I will tell you without any hesitation, that as far as Michigan accents go, mine is minimal at worst. There are far worse things, certainly. Not only that, but my supposed Michigander accent is not at all as bad as a Yooper accent. More on that later.



I've been thinking about this for a little while now and yes, I have noticed that I say certain things a little differently. At least, differently than the native west-coasters. I sometimes catch myself saying cattywompus or screehawed, or referring to pasties not as the things that the strippers wear, but as the meat pie pastries that are yum-tastic, using "yah" (aka: "ja") instead of yeah, saying things like "in a coon's age" or "If, dog, rabbit" and generally confusing the crap out of people who aren't familiar with the terms. "Pop" has become "soda" and I've adopted the habits of my new climate rather well, using "gnarly" in both good and bad contexts and saying "dude" more than any one person ever should.

I say here that those things do not an accent make. Those happen to be a certain way of speaking that is not an accent but a dialect. I own up to my midwestern dialect and after consulting the wikipedia pages for both "yooper" and "pennsylvania dutch" dialects, I can absolutely see where I get my proclivities (check those websites by the way... hilarious!).

I'm going to go on a little rant here about Yooper talk.. mostly because I saw a bumper sticker the other day that I haven't seen in years and always makes me giggle. It says "Say yah to da UP, eh?" For those of you who aren't aware... that totally makes sense to people who know anyone who has lived in the UP (or of course has been there themselves).

Per the wikipedia page, Yooper speak extends over into Wisconsin and covers basically only that area and the Upper Peninsula (The U.P... thus, Yooper) of Michigan. While true, some of this slang leaks down to we trolls (those who live under the bridge, ie: the mitten part of Michigan) and we use some of it too. Now. Being that most of my family has lived/worked in the UP at some point in their lives, it's not surprising that I picked up on some of the habits of speech.

The UP is truly its own little world and while I'm not exactly qualified to share with you all the differences in culture, I will refer you to a useful website. This will at least partially explain why I speak the way I do... you all can laugh if you like and think it's cute but the point is,... it's not my fault.