"soda" in Minneapolis

[Tom Kysilko]

I.  Since Garrison Keillor has been mentioned, and since we've been treated
to a fascinating article in the most recent AS about the influence of media
representations on Pittsburghese, I have to wonder if any work of a similar
nature is being done on Minnesota speech (ME).  People of my acquaintance
here will occasionally ape -- both self-consciously and un-self-consciously
-- the representations of ME found in A Prairie Home Companion ("A guy
could...", "You betcha"), Howard Mohr's How to Talk Minnesotan ("hotdish"),
the Coen brother's Fargo ("Oh, yaaaaa"), the vowels of our current governor
("boooat"), and, to a much lesser degree, the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous
(/ai/ gliding off the chart).  I can't prove it, but I suspect that were it
not for Mohr and Keillor, "hotdish" would have deservedly faded from the
scene.  As it is, we say "hotdish" much more often than we eat it.  (Scary
story:  last winter I was served the dreaded lutefisk.  And while I can't
say that I actually liked it, it went down and stayed down OK, and I even
asked for seconds.  Take heart, if you visit me, you will *never* be served
lutefisk.)

II.  While no one I know around here *says* "string beans", I'm sure
everyone understands it.  For one thing, it's meaning is pretty
transparent.  For another, there was a popular children's song in the '40s
and '50s and perhaps beyond that paired certain foods with days of the
week:  Monday - lamp chops, Tuesday - string beans, Wednesday - soup,
Thursday - roast beef, Friday - fresh fish, Saturday - ice cream, Sunday -
chicken.  All you hungry children, now eat it up.  I had it on a 45, and it
was played regularly on Captain Kangaroo.


  Tom Kysilko        Practical Data Services
  pds at visi.com       Saint Paul MN USA