Oh, fetch. This here made me laugh. This guy says what I've been trying to say for a long time.

Sample: The days of the week are different in Utah than they are in the other states of the Union. They are: Mondee, Tuesdee, Wednesdee, Thursdee, Fridee, Saturdee and The Sabbath.

Something too precious for words (probably tole-painted) is "Fer cuuuute!"

"The hand of fellowship" and "sweet spirit" are phrases that also should have been dust-binned long ago, and, just for once, I would like to hear the word "forever" used in place of "time and all eternity."

http://wesclark.com/ubn/utahnics.html

No, Saturdee is "the day they get ready for Sundee"

The first time I looked at RFM, I saw the letters "DH" and "DW", and I immediately knew what they meant. I thought that was hilarious!

I've lived here my whole life and I've never heard anyone say the days of the week like that(not saying anyone doesn't, just that I haven't heard it).

But one I noticed that annoys me is the disregard of hard consonant on second syllable. This was especially noticible when they were calling out names at my sons baseball games.

Example

Clayton pronounced Clay-un

And there was a slight gutteral sound before the "un".

It's pretty common in other parts of the US as well, when the /t/ is in the middle of a word like that.

I have not heard anyone say that... I've heard " the lard" and "we was" "oh my heck" " how did we did that" "them things" "dawgs and cats"

When I go to Idaho I am a Utard. But what do spud heads know!

The next time I go to Idaho and get the Utard slur I will agree and tell them that they are spot on..."the GA's are the biggest Utards we have."

I always liked "oh my heck." It reminds me of one of the Star Trek movies when they went back in time to the 1980s and Spock was trying to fit in by swearing (badly), and Kirk told him to stop it because he didn't have the knack for it. I've also heard "oh my crap."

Taddlywog said: "Clayton pronounced Clay-un

And there was a slight gutteral sound before the "un"."

That guttural sound instead of a "t" was a "glottal stop" and is a particularly British-English thing.

Many of these "utahnics" make me think of southern UK English accents - is this perhaps because many Utah immigrants came directly from the UK and were then isolated from "normal" American by being stuck in and around SLC ?

That's my theory anyway.

Now you can all shoot it down :-)

Tom in Paris

I'm guilty of this one, especially double t's, they just kind of disappear haha

Could be. It's very southern too.

Use ta' could.
Use ta' was.
Use ta' did.

When I moved to suburban Philadelphia from SLC in the early 90's one of my college professors told me "I'm trying to figure out where you're from since you have absolutely no accent."

With the exception of being a toddler and pre-schooler in Mississippi, S. Carolina and Texas, I grew up in Utah and the Morridor.

I remember hearing "Mondee, Tuesdee", but usually in older adults rather than my peers. Those my age were far more likely to say "pin" instead of "pen" or "will" instead of "well". As in, "Will, I better go home now - bye!" which would leave me glancing around for some kid named Will, who was of course nowhere to be found.

Other memorable sound bites were the infamous "oh my heck" as well as never to be forgotten "special". When I was a junior in H.S. I knew a classmate who used "oh spit!" so much I was ready to throttle her sometimes, even though I was TBM.

Right after one of my sisters left TSCC, she began breaking free of habits shaped by groupthink by trying to remember to say "oh my fuck!" every time she wanted to say "oh my heck!". It was pretty funny, because she used to say the heck version *a lot* as a TBM.

I've been listening to Utahns slaughter the English language for the past 25 years that I've lived there.

When I am in the company Utahnic speaking TBMs, I think it's fun to mess with them a little and purposely pronounce "Ensign" magazine with a short "i" instead of a long "i" the way it's supposed to be pronounced. Without fail, I always get a lecture on the correct pronunciation. Oh, the irony.

There's a rural accent in Utah County that's different than what's usually heard in the bigger cities. Saturday would be pronounced Sad-er-dee. There's also a slower pace of speech and sort of rounded or slurred consonants. I used to instantly recognize a Springville or Spanish Fork native just by how they spoke.

There was a unique mix of lower-class English, backwoods New England, Scandinavian and Scottish settlers. All contributed to it, just as in other places. Among my kid's spouses I get to hear accents from California, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Native American.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 11:20AM by rationalguy.

Sorry, but that should be Whensdee

Ana

We usta could get some good peaches down Norm.

I'm a linguist by profession so I would like to jump in quickly.

Linguistics is a social science, so it's driven by data. It's a given for us that no community of native speakers of a language speaks it "wrong" because the native speakers are the people who define the rules of a language community to begin with. What linguists do (and have done) with Utah speech is record, observe, analyze and describe it. We have technical alphabets and other notational tools and frameworks to do that sort of thing, but I can see that posters in this thread are well on their way to being good describers of linguistic variation!

The other dimension of this is the annoyance or self-criticism aspect of this thread. Language is one of our best tools for conveying ideology and identity. We all consciously AND subconsciously adapt our pronunciation and vocabulary (etc.) in a way that imitates people we find powerful and prestigious and differentiates us from people we don't want to be associated with for social reasons. In other words, the annoyance comes from the social characteristics of the kinds of Utah folk we dislike (because of their connection to TSCC, their perceived educational level, income bracket... it's a complex mix) and less from the actual linguistic behavior. That's just a marker and if each of us examined our own speech we would find traits that annoy others because they don't like who we are or what we represent either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 11:33AM by Inverso.

Thanks for that perspective :)

When I went to school "back east" I intentionally changed the Western pronunciation of the word aunt = "ant" to "ahnt" the way Easterners say it to avoid the quizzical looks I would get when I pronounced it like the insect.

That's not just a Utah thing. I grew up outside of Utah (Western U.S. in non LDS area) as a nevermo. Depending on the situation and how it is used in a sentence, I might say Mondee or Monday, etc.

As for Taddlywog's son, I assume she pronounces it Clay-Ton, but I would probably pronounce it Clayt-un. I've known people with that name (again Western U.S., non-Utah, non-LDS) and that's the way they pronouce their own name Clayt-un or Clayt-tun, with a very soft "t" sound on the second syllable.

It drives me crazy when people prounouce a second syllable with a hard "t" as moun-TAIN, quar-TER. Yes, I know that's the way dictionaries list them, but to me, it sounds like an easterner. One is mount. More than that are mount-uns. A quart is a fourth, so why when it becomes a coin is it a quar-ter. To me, it's a quart-er

I do pronounce the t in many words, such as mountain. But Fritos has a soft t, almost d-like, and Clayton would be Clayt-n, with the t practically swallowed.

Born and bred Minnesotans, namely women, commonly say "Oh fer cute" or "Oh fer gross", or any other adjective. Used to grate on me. The habit of pronouncinf the short a with the long a sound bugged me too, but boy is that common! Such as "maygazine" or "ayggregate" instead of aggregate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 03:06PM by serena.

those opposed say, "Fer Ignerent".

It accompanied an article decades ago in the SLTrib about linguistic idiosyncrasies of Utah.

I'm guilty of saying "You bet" when I mean "Yes, I will gladly do that." Example:

"Hand me the hammer."

"You bet".

crom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> those opposed say, "Fer Ignerent".
>
> It accompanied an article decades ago in the
> SLTrib about linguistic idiosyncrasies of Utah.
>
> I'm guilty of saying "You bet" when I mean "Yes, I
> will gladly do that." Example:
>
> "Hand me the hammer."
>
> "You bet".

When we moved to the US, we noticed how most people will not say "You're welcome" when told "Thank you", but rather will respond with "Uh-huh."

The exception was Utah, where the response was "You bet."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 03:38PM by wowbagger.

In the west you also get "no problem" as a response to "Thank you".

I love local idioms and accents. I don't see teaching every US child to speak like a national TV commentator to be a very interesting goal. Watching local speech patterns disappear is like watching landmarks get bulldozed for a walmart.

My mom called me ignernt all the time. I thought she had just misheard a word. She knew how to correctly say "ignorant."

I personally try to speak proper American English, but I was born in Southern Idaho and have lived most of my life in Central Utah. I have an accent, and it would be evident to a linguist that I'm from the Intermountain West, Great Basin. I catch myself pronouncing the word "just" as "jist," or saying "gotta" instead of "got to," for instance. I've jist gotta werk on it more.

My favorite is when someone wants to thaw something-- but they say "unthaw" instead... like "Honey, will you unthaw the chicken?".

Technically, wouldn't this word mean they want to freeze it again?

IRREGARDLESS of whether they want you to thaw or freeze the chicken, I think thaw and unthaw have become the same, but it is a subject that can easily become INFLAMMABLE.

I work with lots of heating and air conditioning stuff at my job. I don't know if it's just Utahns or not, but they all insist on calling a damper a "dampener." They pronounce it "damp-ner."

I'm from Oregon (pronounced Or-ee-gun, not Or-ee-gahn) so I picked up on some of the local dialect when I moved to the Morridor. Some of my favorite Utahnics examples not yet mentioned:

Ornery (pronounced "on-ree")

The recycled T's they save in words like "moun'ain" showing up in words like else (elts) and pulse (pults).

Utah is the only state in the union in which one might roll down the core window to throw out an apple car. (Alternatively, my grandpa used to claim that I was 'Barn in a born' because I would leave the door open often.

More - the machine one uses in which to cut the grass.

Far place - the hearth that brings warmth in the winter

Patriarticle - portmanteau of "Patriarch" and "Article"

Tore - a trip through a country

EDIT: One last one I forgot - "Warm" rhymes with "Farm" in some places instead of rhyming with "Form"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 04:02PM by utahstateagnostics.

My dad is So Utah native. 2 words they can't say right.

Wash was warsh
Sleep was sleemp

It was a challenge for me in elementary school because they were teaching us to spell by letter sound.

Ensign has two pronunciations, depending on which meaning is intended.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 05:04PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Made me think of someone I haven't thought of in years. Her name was Utahna.