The Michigan
Accent
“Michigander Slang Words”
Michigan Slang/Colloquialisms:
“The Mitten”
The State of Michigan
“The U.P.”
The Upper Peninsula
“Up North”
Where you go if you're traveling within Michigan
In Michigan we….
...go tuh the store, not "to" it.
...usta' have jobs in Detroit, not "used to"
...go huntin' in the wuds, not the "woods"
...get our tires slashed for driving a Tie-ota, not a
Toyota.
...say er' not "or."
...feel like we're ki-nuh like Minnesotans, not "kind of."
Michiganders like to save time...
We talk really fast here, so in order to do so,
we do something similar to what the French
call a liaison and elision. This is basically a
way to mash up words in order to make
pronunciation easier and faster.
"Well, how am I supposed
to say it?"
This comes out sounding like, "Well, how
my spose'ta' sayit'?"
Ja-eat?
Did you eat?
Yuh guys
you guys
Lookit!
Look at it! check this out!
Secretariah State
Secretary of state
Where at?
Where?
We end many sentences in prepositions such as “at”
Grranrapids
Grand Rapids
AK-cidih
accident
aeh Narbor
Ann Arbor
Ashfault
Asphalt
bolth
both
Char-LOTT
Charlotte
Ciddy
city
cloze
clothes
CAHL-yum
column
COMF-terbul
comfortable
Cahngriss
congress
C’Meer
Come Here
Cranz
crayons
crick
creek
Deeah or Dayaahd
Dad
DiTROI
Detroit
drownded
drowned
Eeeevs Traaaf
eavestrough
FI-yerr
Fire
FREVer
Forever
Frigerraider
Refrigerator
GoverMit
Government
grage
garage
GROSHries
groceries
Haahkee
hockey
Hunnerd
Hundred
I-munna
I’m going to..
KI-nuh
kind of
LayKEERie
Lake Erie
Lie-berry
Library
liVONEya
Livonia
maahm
mom
Melk
milk
Mier or meer
mirror
muskeeda
mosquito
NUKE-yuller
nuclear
Pah-neeack
Pontiac
pahp
pop
pellow
pillow
reeelatur
realtor
ruff
roof
seckit
second
tempachur
temperature
thenks
thanks
vanella
vanilla
weeken
weekend
winzerr
Windsor, (Canada)
yuh
you
The Michigan Accent:
The letter "A"
as in "car" is a kind of light ee-yeah or ēă sound.
Crayons are "crans"
Dad is dēăd
The long "e" sound
like the "i" in "mirror" is a bit longer and really nasally.
Also, we don't waste our time with the "or" in "mirror", so it's just "meer."
The letter "t"
If the letter "t" occurs in the middle of a word, it has a "d" sound.
City is pronounced "ciddy"
The Michigan Accent:
Glottal Stop
This is when your voice kind of stops in the middle of a word and then starts again.
In Michigan, we like to do glottal stops at the end of our words, which is kind of like a last bit of forced breath.
When we say Detroit, we don't say the "t" sound at the end. We say “Detroi” and then a bit of forced breath.
"kitten" or "button", there is a glottal stop without the t sound actually being pronounced
kitten = kih'ihn, button = buh'ton
"Ah"
is drawn out, as in “faahh-ther” for father and “maahm” for mom.