How We Talk

How We Talk

Here's a collection of you-must-be-from-North-Dakota sayings dealing with regional speech, although of course, no one around here talks like this.
  • If you can't start a conversation without mentioning the weather . . .
  • If you refer to hair as hairs . . .
  • If you say Uff-da and Fe-da . . .
  • If you understand ALL the uses of the word "Uff-Da" . . .
  • If a stiff wind means gas from a dead guy . . .
  • If your epitaph will include the words "yep" and "nope" . . .
  • If your dad repeated first grade because he only spoke Norwegian . . .
  • If you can't make it through a phone conversation without mentioning the weather . . .
  • If you think a bison is a buffalo . . .
  • If you think skis are "Norwegian timber" . . .
  • If you understand that "Yah y'betch yah" means either "I agree" or "You're full of it" and you know the difference . . .
  • If you never confuse "Yah," "Yep," and "Yah y'betch yah" . . .
  • If you think everyone from a different state has an accent . . .
  • If your answer to "How are you?", "How's the weather?", "How was your crop?", or "How's the ranchin' goin'?" is the same--"Not so bad."
  • If you know there are two definitions for the word "bucks"--a male deer, and what your German uncle calls insects . . .
  • If you can identify a Minnesota accent . . .
  • If you bake with soda and drink pop . . .
  • If you "manure the barn" . . .
  • If you hear "Yah, sure" not "Yes, sir" . . .
  • If you say, "Outside, zero is below" . . .
  • If you go to Arkansas for a visit and everyone tells you you have an accent . . .
  • If you go to the post office to mail a paggitch . . .
  • If you talk about electric tape and people don't look at you like they wonder just how many cards are left in your deck . . .
  • If you refer to a snack as a "bunny lunch" . . .
  • If being detained by snow is to be "snow-stayed" . . .
  • If you pronounce it Nor'Dakoda . . .
  • If you consider Spanish a foreign language . . .
  • If after you have discussed the weather, conversation declines . . .
  • If you end all of your sentences with either "ya know", "you betcha", or "okiedokie" . . .
  • If you hear "You betcha" and "Okey Dokey" in the same sentence . . .
  • If your e-mail address is uffda . . .
  • If you omit the noun or pronoun from the end of a sentence beginning, "I am coming (or going) with . . .
  • If your name is Marlys . . .
  • If you have any idea how to answer, "Does your baby make strange?" . . .
  • If you routinely end sentences with prepositions, i.e., "Do you want to come with?" . . .
  • If you think someone from northern Indiana has a southern accent and wouldn't really know what winter is (we do; it's just that winter there is a 3-month season--as are spring and fall) . . .
  • If you say "uff-da" as an exclamation . . .
  • If you have ever said, "Cold weather keeps out the riff-raff" . . .
  • If the second question after "Where are you from?" is always "Do you know ----?" . . .
  • If you call the grass between the sidewalk and the curb a berm . . .
  • If you don't believe you sound like the actors in the movie Fargo . . .
  • If you cannot greet anyone without first mentioning the weather . . .
  • If you pronounce Greg and Craig the same, and people can tell the difference . . .
  • If you state the obvious--"Oh, I see you are in town today" . . .
. . . then you must be from North Dakota.