About a year ago I was visiting my sister at college in St. Paul and I hung out with her and her friends for a day. Two of her friends were from out of state (like my sister and I) but one was a native. We started talking about the differences between Minnesotan and west-coast english. One of the differences that came up was the different name for the game where you sit in a circle and one person touches each person on the head saying “duck, duck, duck… (etc.)” until they decide to say “Goose!” and the Goose then has to chase the person who touched his head around the circle until they are caught or manage to sit in the space vacared by the Goose. Us west-Coasters called it Duck, Duck, Goose! She called it Duck, Duck, Grey Duck! We teased her about this mercilessly. (well ok, not mercilessly but we did tease her).
What I’m wondering is what is the geographical distribution of the names for this game? Who calls it Duck, Duck, Goose and who calls it Duck, Duck, Grey Duck? Are there any other names for this game?
I’d also like to open the field up for discussion of other regional variations of words such as the soda/pop/coke/soft drink issue. (Living in the linguistic melting pot of western Washington state, I hadn’t really realized that certain words for carbonated beverages were used in different parts of the US.)
Also, does anybody have stories of interesting Minnesotan word usages or pronunciations?
I welcome discussion on any of these topics although I am immediately interested in the Duck, Duck, Goose/Grey Duck question.
Yes, we thought so as well. We speculated that conformity is much stronger among Minnesotans and so a Grey Duck was sufficiently different from a regular duck that it warranted chasing. Out here on the West Coast it takes a Goose to elicit a chase response.
Also, being monosylabbic like “Duck”, “Goose” is easier to say in a hurry. Maybe Minnesotans are so slow that they need to give the kids a head start by saying “Grey Duck!” instead of “Goose!”
(Sorry if I’ve offended any Minnesotans, I don’t really believe eother of those theories ;). )
My wife, Edlyn, had told me that Minneapolitans say “unthaw” to mean “thaw”. Sure enough, when we visited Minneapolis when her dad passed on, people there were talking about the snow unthawing, and so forth. The only one that really grates on my ears for some reason, like fingernails on a blackboard, is “pop” for “coke”. [shudder…]
I had no idea nayone else would be interested enough in this question to post a question, but boy was I wrong! I hadn’t realized it made an appearance on who wants to be a millionare.
Having read the earlier thread I can venture a couple insights.
As far as I can tell, the gray duck version is confined to Minnesota, isolated border areas (though apparantly not Wisconsin) and also at least part of Pennsylvania. One person said that they had heard of both while growing up, but most people seemed surprised and outraged that some people played the cherished childhood game incorrectly. The MinnesOtans were apalled by “Goose!” and most everyone else thought “Gray Duck!” was a travesty. There was some speculation that this was a Lutheran thing. Finally, the two versions seem to be slightly different besides the name. (At least one poster’s description didn’t match my memory). Apparently with Duck, Duck, Gray Duck you say “Red Duck, Green Duck, Blue Duck etc.” until you say Gray duck. This was not how we played it as kids it was, “Duck, Duck, Duck, etc.” until we said “Goose!” I have a new respect for Minnesotans, it takes qiuck thinking to react to Gray Duck in that situation.
I also am remembering a version that was “Duck, Duck, Fox!” But I think it was contrived by our teachers and never caught on.
I think that this is an issue that requires more research. Instead of the pointless name-calling that goes on over the proper form of the game, someone should trace where the game came from and the regional variations and publish their findings in a scientific journal. (With my luck this has already happened and I’m wasting useless breath.)
P.S. I’m thinking of starting a new thread for the discussionn of regionalisms. I’m fascinated by the strange ways different regions express the same concept. I probably wil get to this in the near future.
Since the Duck Duck Whatever question has been answered I have another Minnesota question.
A few years ago a family from Minnesota move next door to me. They put the word “then” after almost every question they asked. The would say things like “Are you going to the bank then?” and “Did your cat come back home then?”
I would always ask “When?” and they would just smile at me. I think they thought I was a little stupid.
I have always wondered if this was common in Minnesota or if it was just them.
That’s funny, “coke” kind of grates on my ears…
Well, I guess it really doesn’t bother me, it’s just that Coke is a brand name. Soda, Pop, Soda Pop, Soft Drink, and Carbonate Beverage are not. (Soft Drink and Carbonated Beverage, are not high on my list though…) Maybe it also has to do with the fact that coke was never used to describe carbonated beverages generically where I come from, whereas soda, pop, and soda pop all were. You have to admit, though, that it is kind of confusing to use a name associated with a specific drink to apply to all sweetened drinks. Maybe it isn’t confusing if you all use it in that way, but it is for those of use where it isn’t.
Possibly. But it’s not without precedent. You got a kleenex?
I think starting a thread on regionalisms is a great idea. Here’s another one I noticed from Edlyn and friends in Minnesotta. It hits me like a song in D-minor that ends on a B-5: “We’re going to dinner. You wanna go with?”
I believe the use of ‘then’ at the end of sentances is a normal Minnesotan usage, though I’m not a Minnesotan myself.
‘Then?’ seems to me to have all the charm and usefulness of the Canadian eh? and the Cockney “innit?” Not to mention hundreds of other regional variations (though I have to say that many of them aren’t as vital as these examples.)
A partial list of other, similar words:
[ul]
[li]Minnesotan ‘huh?’[/li][li]Seattlite ‘yeah’ (cooler than Minnestan Ja)[/li][li]‘Izzit?’ (sort of the opposite of ‘innit?’)[/li][li]‘Ennit?’ (from movie ‘Smoke Signals’, I assume it is rez slang)[/li][li]Valley Girl ‘like’[/li][li]the list goes on…[/li][/ul]
You know what? I’m going to start this Regionalisms thread right now! This topic really interests me. I want to start fresh, so I’m going to begin a new thread right now entitled Regional Differences in Language.
As to the “then” usage question, Yep! And as to the Gray Duck and other coloured Ducks, ditto! I never heard of “Duck, Duck, Goose!” until it was discussed on these boards.
Zumba The Cat
Ah, yeah, you’re right. The “just smile” was a clue. That’s part of the “Minnesota Nice” behaviour. It would be considered impolite to let the other person know you thought they said or did something really stupid.
Instead of “Can you lend me five bucks?” some Minnesotans will say “Can you borrow me five bucks?”
The first time I heard this I swear I thought that the person wanted, for some strange reason, to lend me five dollars even though I hadn’t asked for a loan.
I don’t know about other parts of the State, but I found that in general Twin Cities denizens spoke a very neutral English. Very little accent of any kind.
This is true, I can attest to that.
I have now lived in Minnesota since 1986, and I still have to try to decipher what was said.
With all the “Oh ya’s”, and “Doncha knows” and references to grey ducks, Spam and Dairy Princesses, it’s all I can do to keep up with a conversation.
The movie Fargo, was not far off base.
I was once chided for referring to my drink as a soda, the same happened when I called a some food a casserole instead of hotdish.
When I first moved here I remember there was a lot of pride about this being the “Education State”, but after being here just a little while, I discovered that a lot of these people can’t spell, I now think they must of meant that this is the Edgamacation State.
Hell, 37% of the voters went with the fathead, who by the way a product of the MN public school system.
But hey, don’t get me wrong, I do like it here. Take away the -40 degree windchills and and 50 feet of snow in the winter, and the 90% humidity and the friggin mosquitoes(the state bird) in the summer and you have paradise.
The book also contains such Minnesotanisms as “a lotta guys”, “you bet”, and “that’s different”
And, Libertarian? When I was living away from here and EVERYONE thought I was from the south, that ‘wanna go with?’ thing ALWAYS gave me away King Rat:
That’s very true, for the Cities at least. But once one moves out of the Metro area to the more German, Polock, and Scandihoovian areas the accents are much more pronounced. There are areas near New Ulm and Lake Wobegon, e.g., that use the phrase “I’m going by Jane’s house”, a leftover from the German ‘bei’.
It would seem that I am the expert of the week here. I am indeed a lifelong Minnesotan, but I feel that something should be pointed out here. The Twin Cities area is not a good place to go if you’re looking for your true Minnesotans - there is far too much exposure to outsiders in that area to truly preserve our strange dialect. If any of you have heard of the Iron Range, however, THAT IS WHERE IT’S AT. Myself, I am a lifelong resident of Duluth, Minnesota, which is about 150 miles north of Minneapolis. Things are different here.
I guess I have a lot of trouble bringing up any unusual language we may use because it simply doesn’t sound unusual to me. But here’s a brief list of things that leap to mind:
A hotdish is a hotdish. I don’t know what the smack it is to you people.
We put sour kraut on our hot dogs.
Duck, duck, grey duck? You bet!
“You bet!” (Also see: “You betcha!”) - I frequently use and hear this one.
Someone mentioned the notion of “going by” someone’s house. I wasn’t aware that this was unusual at all. We go by eachother’s houses, the grocery store, all the time. On occasion, I’ve been known to swing by the video store on my way home. Minnesotan? I don’t know.
Try as I may to help it, I say “Oooh yahh” all the time. Also, I’ve noted that my mother will talk on the phone and just use the words “Yah? Yah! Yaaaaaaah.” for as long as ten minutes. And she’s a polish one, not a swedish one. Dey’re not as bad as da Finlanders, though.
We not only say “then” after sentences, we also say “there”. Here’s some very common examples: “Are you going to come by after school then?” “Hey, what’s going on there?”
My personal favorite. New Yorkers have “How ya doin’?” Whereas we have “How’s it gooooin’?” It’s impossible to explain how “goooooin’” is to be pronounced. Perhaps some day I’ll get real ambitious and include links to me saying the words in question. Hey, that’d be sweet.
I have never called pop soda in my entire life.
You know, this is something that I think may be fundamentally Minnesotan. Whenever someone swings by your home, and after you’ve eaten your hotdish with those guys, there is a code of conduct when they decide that the time has come for them to get going. Just about every self-respecting Minnesotan (particularly the scandinavians) understands this. The guest will announce that they’ve got to get going. This does not mean that they’re going to get up and leave anytime remotely soon. It simply means that they will now engage in the very lengthy process of heading home. Usually this means at least another half hour of sitting around. Going to the interesting part, though, the guest receives a full escort from the host throughout their entire process. The host will often walk out to the guest’s car with them, and the guest is then required to open the window. At this point, host and guest commence with another exchange of approximately 5 minutes through the car window. When the guest actually starts to drive away, 90% of all hosts actually walk alongside their guest for a bit. I’m pretty sure this is something we do, and most Minnesotans are going to be very familiar with this.
Whenever I leave town I always am told about all sorts of crazy things I say. One of the most awakening moments for me with regards to my accent came when at the national student congress back in high school. I was chatting in a room with folks from every part of the country, no less than three of which had MASSIVE southern accents that I got an enormous kick out of. Long story short, I was immediately declared as “the guy with the funny accent”.
“Well, ok then!”
That’s what I’ve got on this for now. I absolutely know for sure that I’m missing all sorts of the funny ones because I’m quite tired. Perhaps Lowellster will come by soon and give me a hand.
