Tuesday, 7/18

That was a hard one to cut.

As I've mentioned in here several times before, when I do my “Life in the 906” bit on TV-19 I have two minutes of airtime, and no more. The pieces I write are often longer than those two minutes, but I usually find that they're easy to cut and, often, made better by the trims to get them down to time.

But not this week's piece.

When I got done letting it pour out of my brain Saturday, I knew it was long. But I also knew it was solid, with enough gags and obscure UP references to make everyone happy. However, when I timed it out, I was surprised as to just long it was—three minutes. That means I had to cut a third out of it.

And that was hard.

I ended up slashing whole paragraphs of the copy, which means that two whole bits—about the word “youze” and the words you might hear during winter—had to go. I mean, I think that what remained was gold, but maybe—just maybe—it might have been platinum-plated gold with everything left in. But alas, it was not meant to be.

At least not on TV. Here, I don't have a time limit. I can write as much as I want. So herewith, I present the UNCUT version of “How to Speak Yooper”, with all the gags left in. Maybe, someday, they'll also reach television, but for now?

They'll have to be content with life on the internet.

(jim@wmqt.com)

*****

In my never-ending quest to help tourists fit right in when they visit the UP, this week I would like to present….

“Jim’s Keys to Speaking Yooper”.

They always say that when you’re visiting a foreign country you should learn at least a few words, just to show you’re making an effort.  And you could say the same if you’re coming to visit the UP.  After all, there are some linguistic…quirks you’ll find all around our amazing peninsula.  Quirks you don’t find anywhere else.  In fact, there’s even been a very interesting book written about it.

So how do you define speaking “Yooper”?  Well, I don’t know if there’s a precise way of defining it.  I guess the closest I can come is to describe it like this–you take a standard midwestern accent, cover it with squeaky cheese, dunk it in black coffee, and wash it down with a jumbo or two of Bosch beer.

Make sense?

There are a couple of phrases everyone needs to know right off the bat–the ubiquitous “Holy Wah”,  the even more ubiquitous “Say Ya To Da UP”, and the no longer used but still fondly remembered “We Go Green Bay”  and its wayward cousin, “We Go Shopko Liquor”.

There are also several ways in which you can start or end a sentence, with exclamations like “Ya Sure, “You Betcha, or “Eh.  They can go at the beginning of a sentence or wrap it up, and you can use them in any combination, including the often-attempted but not always mastered “Ya Sure You Betcha Eh”.  However, if you’re a newcomer to speaking Yooper, you may want to warm up before trying that combo.

After all, I have seen tourists blow out their vocal cords trying that without proper practice.

You can actually fit it quite well with the use of just one word–youze.  It’s not “you guys”, it’s “youze guys”.  And when you walk into a store don’t be surprised if someone cheerfully says “Can I help youze?”  And that, by the way, is the perfect time to use a phrase like “Ya Sure” or “You betcha” as a reply.

You’ll fit right in.

I know it’s theoretically summer right now, but if you were to visit us during our ten months of winter you’d have a whole ‘nother set of words to use.  Swampers, chooks, rubbers, and choppers are all things you wear to stay warm, and “pank” becomes an all-purpose verb when you’re dealing with mud, snow, slush, ice, or the giant Himalayan-sized peaks snow plows leave at the end of your driveway.

And since you’re  tourists, you should be aware that we do have special names for you.  For our friends from Lower Michigan, you’re trolls, because of that, you know, whole under the bridge thing.  People from Wisconsin are Cheeseheads, and if you’re visiting us from Chicago or anywhere in the great state of Illinois, you’re a FIB.  That is an acronym, by the way.  The “I” in FIB stands for “Illinois”.

And I’ll, uh, leave the “F”and the “B” in that acronym to your imagination.

This is just skimming the surface.  There will be so many different ways of saying so many different things as you make your way across the UP.  So don’t be afraid; just dive in with your Yooperisms.  After all, just making the effort is the important thing.

I'm Jim Koski, and that's another slice of “Life in the 906”...eh?