“We don’t have an accent anymore, you do.”
A quote from a Barney Miller episode, broadcast during the Carter Administration. (Of course, the actor speaking had a stereotypical southern accent.)
Back in the 80s I worked for a family that came from MI. They had a subtle accent that was a little different than here in NE Indiana. The two words I remember being pronounced differently were;
The white liquid that came from cows was melk.
The stuff you threw out in the trash was garbitch.
I knew at the time but don’t remember now what part of Michigan they were from.
Doesn’t anyone with an accent this acute stop and think?
"Wait, there’s no e in milk. Why am i saying it that way? Just because my friends and parents did? Do I have to slavishly follow them?
I decided as a kid to start saying CREEK instead of CRICK following that exact logic.
And what about people who say WES’consin or IlliNOISE?
My childhood best friend from Chicago would say “melk” for some reason. My wife from Buffalo seems to say it occasionally. It’s hard to tell, as in spontaneous speech, I don’t find the difference between “e” and “i” to be that noticeable. It’s only in repeated instances of the word that I might notice it.
“WESconsin,” I similarly am unlikely to notice, unless I’m paying attention for it. That first vowel could also easily be schwa’ed. Now “Illinoise” sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I can honestly say I have not heard anyone say it that way for decades.
That’s because I kidnapped them, and they’re being re-educated in a “black grammar site”.
The real grating thing about WES’-consin is the strong hit on the WESS with a little pause before consin.
Good job! But, it’s one of those things I was told about growing up here in Chicago, Illinois, that some people pronounce it that way. And that’s fine – accents are accents – local pronunciations are local pronunciations – but I don’t think I’ve heard “Illinoise” since the late 80s in casual speech. The last time I was reminded of it was Sufjan Stevens’s album “Illinoise.” I simply do not hear anyone pronounce it that way – wait – maybe if they’re a non-native English speaker. I could see myself simply writing that off and therefore not noticing it.
When I would put on an exaggerated Michigan accent I would say the phrase, “Milk costs ten cents” as “Melk cost tin cints”.
I would think that a lot of states have numerous distinct accents. Accents don’t follow state borders. They are more likely to follow the boundaries of metropolitan conglomerations as well as broad regions–which in the United States tend to be in the shape of belts or layers running east to west, and they pay no attention whatsoever to state boundaries.
Ohio has at least four major accent regions (Appalachian, Great Lakes, Midwestern, and … Cincinnati), which is similar to what you have observed in Michigan.
Judging from the some of the examples, many accented words have come about from trying to talk while one’s face has been frozen…
Just try saying “milk” without moving one’s cheeks. (Any remarks about the other “cheeks” will be distainfully ignored.)
Same reason some people have gotten into the habit of wrapping both hands around a cup of hot coffee.
The Mid-Atlantic Accent, which is, if not extinct, much less common than it was in the 20th century.
Yeah that Michigan accent, after living in this state 26 years it’s finally wearing on me to where I shout back at the radio/TV mimicking the ridiculous accent. I kid, 
. Today I heard a coworker say I’ll take a melk, I’m what? Melk! Melk? Oh you mean m I l k. That’s what I said melk! For Pete’s sake!
Since the discussion has expanded somewhat into Midwestern accents and pronunciation in general, here’s a remark made by Gary Oldman:
“ [on his gift with accents] I can do a rough approximation of virtually any accent. I’ve always done them; as a kid I used to do the Beatles as a party piece. When I was with the Royal Court Theatre we used to piss around and people would say, “I bet you can’t do Zimbabwe,” so I did it. The accent on The Contender (2000) - Illinois - was the hardest I ever had to do, because there’s no melody to catch on to. Most accents have a music to them, but Illinois is a very flat, unimaginative thing. [2001]”
Oh wretched Gary Oldman, what actor wouldn’t love, and what modern audience would possibly believe the voice of the senator from Illinois Everett M Dirksen?
Not an inaccurate description of the state itself, for that matter. 
His voice is resonant, but Oldman is right, his accent has no particular music. It is relatively very flat, so far as accents go. It’s also not distinctively an Illinois accent. It’s a very general non-regional accent.
It must be a lost accent, since I was alive in Illinois when Dirksen was our senator. Though not as stentorian and gravelly, most rural, middle class and above Illinoisans spoke like that.
ETA: there’s similarities to the voice of Ronald Reagan, who was lifeguard at the beach where my grandparents took my mom.
I grew up in suburban Cleveland and now live in Lafayette, Indiana. Your pronunciation is shared by many denizens of both areas, me among them. So it appears to be common across a large swath of the Great Lakes-adjacent Midwest.
In reference to the hopping amphibian…is it frowg or fragh? My grampa always pronounced it as the latter. Sounded wrong to me even as a little kid.
What about odd accents/linguistic quirks that don’t seem to have anything to do with geography?
I have friends that I grew up, who haven’t strayed far from home (heck, my best friend from grade school bought a house three blocks from his parents)… I’ll listen closely at reunions, and one old friend will say “wash”, one will say “Car needs warshing.” One will speak as God intended, one will say “Wanna come with?”
I’ve heard those two oddities all over the country, and any group of natives (I polled a group of lifelong Denver residents, my kid’s SF friends, etc) will have a mixture of “normal” and “weirdo”.
I was going to start a new thread, but I did a search first and I think this thread is close to what I was interested in asking about:
How many accents can your hear or identify in your native language? I can easily identify around 10 accents in US English - the west, the upper mid-west (e.g. the movie Fargo), southern (TX, OK), gulf coast (MS, AL), east-coast southern (VA, NC, GA), Tennessee Valley southern, and several individual city accents in the NE (e.g. Philadelphia, Boston, NYC). I can also identify Australian (but I can’t really tell Aus from NZ), and RP British accent. I can hear the difference between other UK accents like Scottish and Irish. I can also hear differences in other local British accents, but I have no idea where they are from, and I think some accents are social-economic, which I really don’t understand, aside from educated speech (mostly just grammar). I can also usually tell a Canadian accent from a US accent. I’m curious how many accents other folks can hear in their native language. I know there are several regional accents in Brazilian Portuguese, and there are numerous accents in Spanish (from Spain and Latin America). Just curious how many accents people can typically hear and identify in their native language.
I found this thread - How many native speaker dialects can you recognize?
This is what I was curious about… I should have read this thread before I posted on this one. My apologies.