The FastDay Forum

OK,I'm late to the party, but here is a clip from the movie "Fargo" that pretty much sums up the rural Minnesotan accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-XEHwUBubk

Here is a much longer one called "How to Speak Minnesotan". Pretty good but not the best quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShEhj_DVsY

I grew up in Wisconsin, the state to the east. It is amazing how different the two states are. WI was settled by more German Catholics where MN was mainly Scandinavian Lutherans.

Where are you from izzy?

[Betsysgr8]

@JM53 ROFL ! My family is from South Dakota and I identified with alot of it. My grandpa was a master at the single index finger wave while driving.

We were just visiting some friends that retired to WI. They did the entire long goodbye to a tee. We were able to decline the overnight stay though!

I love that Fargo clip. When that movie came out so many Minnesotans were upset but we thought it was hilarious.

@Betsygr8, if you get to this area you would love the play "The Church Basement Ladies"

That was a great clip! I always thought I was well travelled but am I the only one who needed subtitles for The Wire? It was so hard to understand I switched to the Danish version of The Killing!

Karen, I am adopting you as my much younger twin sister!!
Well travelled, yes, even lived in upstate N.Y.at one time and couldn't understand a word of the Wire. Still am missing the Killing, esp the very first one, and understood it perfectly (ok. the subtitles helped!!)

Lol. I'm terrible for picking up accents, there was an Italian mum at school who thought I was from Sicily cos after any conversation with her I sounded like I was in a dolmio pasta sauce advert.

@rawkaren I definitely needed subtitles for The Wire but can watch Montalbano without and understand most of it.

[wildmissus]

Just thought I would let you know that the kids are off school for the next 2 weeks for the 'tattie howking holidays'.

That's the potato picking holidays!

Is it just a fall break with an historic name, or is everyone really out picking for two weeks? Please explain...

As with most school holidays the breaks were built in around the harvesting times for various crops. The 6 week midsummer break for the cereal crops. The October holidays for the apple picking and the root vegetable crops etc. I doubt very much if 1 in 20 of the kids in a rural school would actually be out potato picking. Even less in an urban or city school, some of the kids in those schools would be horrified at the thought that the potatoes grew in soil that had been deliberately sprayed with cow dung. I have been tempted at times to jump out of the car with a bag and rummage for the potatoes (spuds) that the machinery have left behind.

Thanks again, @Julieathome. That's pretty much what I figured.

Here the summer break is very long and there is a big movement in many places to get rid of it, because the kids forget a lot of what they have learned over such a long time off. And of course virtually none of them are out picking potatoes, or anything else for that matter...

... Only picked potatoes once (for a family friend who was a farmer) - never again! backbreaking work!

Re long summer break - well here in UK we have the Summer Reading Challenge in libraries up and down the country - keeps primary age children reading - they have to read 6 books. Nothing like that in US??

Let's not forget Bonfire night, (Guy Fawkes night) Brits.
(remember, remember the 5th of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot!
I know no reason
why the gunpowder treason
should ever be forget)
Time to celebrate the eponymous hero, Guy Fawkes, who was a catholic and wanted to blow up the houses of parliament in 1604. (he failed)
Oh yes, we burn effigies of him on top of bonfires and light fireworks, eat Parkin and generally have a jolly good time!