How to Talk Minnesotan
Page 1
PENGUIN BOOKS
How to Talk Minnesotan
As a writer for A Prairie Home Companion in its early years, Howard Mohr created over two hundred scripts and ad spots, including RAW BITS (“the tough natural cereal made from oat hulls and wheat chaff”); POLKA PANTS (“available at fine accordion stores everywhere—they don’t blow out under stress”); BIGGER HAMMER HARDWARE (“just as helpful as your next-door neighbor, but without all that sarcasm that hurts so much”); SLOW-DECAY SNACK CAKES (“they’ll last longer than you will”); THE COLLEGE OF LOW-TECHNOLOGY; WORST CASE SCENARIO; and ONE-MINUTE ROMANCES (“sponsored by PORK BRAND SHOES—they squeak a little but they don’t sweat”). Howard frequently appeared on A Prairie Home Companion in his own material as Howie Humde (owner of the WALLEYE PHONE COMPANY, “two-way service by request only”); as Herb (of HERB’S ACU-AUTO, “the Midwest’s only acupuncture garage”); and as Bob Humde (inventor of the COW PIE KEY HIDER).
Howard’s long-running “commercials” on A Prairie Home Companion for Minnesota Language Systems (“the simple cassette tape and study guide for visitors from out of state, so they don’t stick out like a sore thumb”) became the heart of his best-selling book How to Talk Minnesotan.
In January 1997 Howard’s musical version of How to Talk Minnesotan opened to a five-year run at the Plymouth Playhouse. On January 29, 2010, the show opened once again at the playhouse for a run through October.
Howard has also written A Minnesota Book of Days (And a Few Nights). Book of Days features his friend Harold Mire, who—like the author—probably spends too much time tinkering with old cars and collecting stuff that might be useful someday.
After the publication of How to Talk Minnesotan in 1987, Howard was frequently asked to do “speaking engagements” for groups as diverse as the Minnesota Beef Council and the International Association of Building Code Inspectors.
In 1992 a half-hour video version of How to Talk Minnesotan was produced and directed by John Whitehead for Twin Cities Public Television and won a regional Emmy in Chicago for Best Single Entertainment Show in October 1992. The video was partly filmed in and around Cottonwood and stars many of Howard’s friends and neighbors.
Howard and his wife live on five acres of southwestern Minnesota prairie, where all 360 degrees of the horizon can be clearly seen and studied, and where a rusty ’46 Dodge pickup stares at them through the kitchen window from its permanent parking spot at the edge of the grove, a memorial to Howard’s father, a mechanic and truck driver.
The Mohrs have two outdoor cats, and just about the right number of possums, skunks, groundhogs, and coyotes. Visitors from the big city always ask, “What do you do out here for fun?” And Howard says, “This is it. You’re doing it now.”
Also by Howard Mohr
How to Tell a Tornado
A Minnesota Book of Days (And a Few Nights)
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in Penguin Books 1987
This revised edition published 2013
Copyright © Howard Mohr, 1987, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
A somewhat different version of “Winter Vacations in Minnesota” was published as “How to Ice Fish Like a Minnesotan” in No Boundaries, a Ford Motor Company magazine.
Other portions of this book first appeared, some in different form, in City Pages, Milkweed Chronicle, Mpls. St. Paul magazine, Minnesota Monthly, and St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Selected portions of “Minnesota Language System” were originally heard on “A Prairie Home Companion,” produced by Minnesota Public Radio.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Mohr, Howard.
How to Talk Minnesotan : Revised for the 21st century /
Howard Mohr.—Revised [edition]
pages cm
ISBN: 978-1-101-61548-5
1. English language—Dialects—Minnesota. 2. English language—Minnesota—Humor. 3. English language—History—21st century. 4. Americanisms—Minnesota. 5. Minnesota—Languages. I. Title.
PE3101.M6M64 2013
427’.97760207—dc23
2012044291
Designed by Spring Hoteling
Cover design and illustration by Ben Wiseman
To Jody, Susan, and Jackson
HOW TO TALK MINNESOTAN IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
My certified birth name is Howard Henry Mohr. Many times over the twenty-five years since the publication of How to Talk Minnesotan, when I have been introduced to strangers, especially Minnesotans, it is not unusual for them to say after a momentary pause, “You’re the guy who wrote that book.” I am fond of that tag, as you can imagine. The visitor’s guide has been popular and is still in print in 2012, which is why, on this silver anniversary of publication, Penguin has assigned me the task of updating “that book.”
My editor’s idea is to bring How to Talk Minnesotan into the twenty-first century, a fairly good idea, since a lot has happened in the world since 1987. The potential problem was that the guy who wrote that book had not brought himself into the twenty-first century yet—well, maybe a little, say 33 percent. I look at 1987, and it stands out as a harmless sort of year in a century that had some very good points. Is it just me? The twenty-first century so far has been science fiction. Take banks for example. In the twentieth century they were uppity, tight, and extremely proud of themselves, but they rarely slapped you upside the head when you asked for a loan. When I put 2012 as the year on a check I write, I just figure the bank will send it back with a note: “Listen, Buster, get Captain Kirk to cash it for you. Don’t try this again. We value your privacy but we know everything about you and have no reason not to publish it if you don’t shape up. How’s your hernia, by the way?”
I may be wrong, but I have it in my head that readers old and new might like to know about the origin of How to Talk Minnesotan.
In 1985 I was already well into writing comedy for A Prairie Home Companion (APHC) on a weekly basis, often performing in my scripts and spots. I wrote many ads for strange products, including “RAW BITS, the tough natural cereal made from oat hulls and wheat chaff. It’s not for everybody.”
In the meantime my wife and teenage daughter and I were planning to visit friends in Germany that summer, and all three of us were brushing up on minimal German. Jody and Susan were driving to town for groceries on a spring day, practicing handy phrases from a guide for English visitors. They broke up laughing when they got to “Wie viel kostet die Bratwurst?” and kept repeating it. Jody’s foot was a bit heavy for the patrolman who stopped them. She got a warning for ten miles per hour over, and I got some material from it: Hey! Why not write a visitor’s guide for Minnesota?
I started by writing “Minnesota Language Systems” (MLS) ads one at a time for APHC. I did twenty-six of the MLS spots all told. Garrison Keillor introduced the ads with “This portion of the show brought to you by ‘Minnesota Language Systems,’ the simple cassette tape and study guide for people from out of state.” I would write in a person from a foreign place, such as New York City or California, who said a phrase wrong, and then
I spoke Minnesotan to correct the error. The lesson closed with “Minnesota Language Systems. After a few weeks of study, you will think you’ve lived in Minnesota all your life, and so will your mom.” I wrote the first “Minnesota Language Systems” spot early in 1985.
In the fall of 1985 I got a call from Garrison’s literary agent in New York City, who proceeded to tell me that she had received a call from a publisher who wanted Garrison to turn those “Minnesota Language Systems” spots into a book they would publish. She said she called Garrison, and he informed her that he did not write those. Howard wrote them. No surprise that nobody knew I wrote them. I was rarely mentioned as a writer on the show, except in a goofy way, as “Manuel Transmission” for example. I grew up on radio, especially radio comedy, and to have a comedy writing job on radio in the 1980s was quite the deal. It was all great fun while it lasted.
I sent the manuscript for How to Talk Minnesotan to Viking/Penguin in September 1986, and it was in the bookstores the summer of 1987.
Okay then, I have done my best on this update thing, which is all a guy can do sometimes.
—H.H.M.
2012
Foreword
by the Author’s Mechanic
My yard is full of cars that I told my customers I’d get to immediately, if not sooner, but I cleaned the grease off my hands with Goop anyway and came in here and sat down at the kitchen table to do what I have to do. I’d rather be on my back under a car drilling out a rusted bolt on a steering knuckle—it would be more entertaining. I’m writing on the blank back of February and March off this year’s tool calendar. I used to keep the old calenders for further study, but they stopped taking snapshots of good-looking women in tiny bathing suits and high heels lounging on trunk lids with a wrench in their hands. I suppose somebody threatened to sue or something—all of a sudden the tool company switched to covered bridges over creeks and sheep standing around in a pasture, which are okay to look at, but I don’t consider them keepers.
The author of this book is a guy I’ve known for going on fifteen years, which means we’ve caught a few walleyes and bullheads together, and every summer there for a while we’d manage to get up to the Cities for a Twins game, back when they played outdoors at the Met stadium, which they tore down. My cousin salvaged one of the big lights for me and I welded it to an axle which I welded to a truck-tire rim for a base and rewired it for a worklight. Now they play in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. We tried one game there. I don’t remember who was playing center field, but it made me dizzy and a little sick to my stomach to see that far and still be inside a building, but it could’ve been the flat beer, too, I don’t know. I don’t mind a cool one every so often—with a Brat—but what they were serving was warm ones in wax cups covered with Saran wrap. It tasted like if we sent a sample of it to the vet, he’d say our horse had diabetes.
Well, hats off to my friend on his book. I hope he makes enough money from it to buy a new car or a fairly good used one, because personally I don’t think that Rambler of his should be on the road—and I’m known as a liberal when it comes to driving junkers. I’ve done everything I can for that Nash, short of faith healing. If it had been anybody else’s car, I would have administered last rites at 172,000 after the carburetor exploded. It launched itself right through the hood and made a hole you could’ve passed a gallon jug of milk through, which he patched with chicken wire and tar paper to keep the rain out. It’s an eyesore. It does start in the winter, though—mostly because it cranks over so easy, the compression is so low. The pistons just sort of rattle around in the cylinders. She burns a little oil and it takes about five minutes to go from 0 to 50 mph, but a good starter is worth its weight in gold, even without fenders or rear seats.
I will say that this book of his should stop some of the speculation about what he does all day, but whether it will improve his reputation in the community, we’ll have to wait and see. For a couple of years, the UPS guys wouldn’t deliver packages to his house, but his neighbors told them he was just an author and completely harmless no matter what he looked like when he came to the door. He’s only got two sets of clothes. He wears one set till they can stand up by themselves, and then he switches to the other set, which is almost identical. But it takes all kinds, and he’s right in there with the best of them.
I’m not sure everybody’s gonna like this book as much as I do—and I don’t mean to say it’s the best book I’ve ever tried to read, but it’s definitely in the average range, and if you keep at it, I think you can get through it without any trouble. Of course, I’ve been from Minnesota since I was born, so the book really isn’t all that useful to me, but it’s got to be helpful to visitors. I’ve seen some doozies. They come rolling into Minnesota with their eyes wide open and not the foggiest idea about where they are or what they’re supposed to do while they’re here. But if their car is broke, I fix it, same as anybody else’s. We’re all equal when it comes to cars. That’s my philosophy.
Well, I’m at the bottom of March and I got three cars sitting out there I said would be done before five. One of them is Ted Mason’s ’78 Chevy, and if it doesn’t run like new when he picks it up, I’ll hear about it. The problem is, it didn’t even run like new when he bought it new. If I can get it to run like a top, I’ll be happy.
CONTENTS
How to Talk Minnesotan in the Twenty-first Century
Foreword by the Author’s Mechanic
A Twenty-fifth Anniversary Congratulatory Message from the Chair
of the University of Minnesota’s Widely Acclaimed MSL Program (Minnesotan as a Second Language)
1.
Getting Started in Minnesotan
2.
The Power of the Negative
3.
Eating In in Minnesota
4.
Basic Conversations
5.
Dining Out in Minnesota
6.
What to Say When You’ve Arrived
7.
Talking Cars in Minnesota
8.
Lutefisk
9.
How We Write Our Poetry Here and What We Do with It
10.
Oh, for and Heckuva Deal
11.
Your Winter Vacation in Minnesota
12.
What to Say When Someone Shows You His Smartphone
13.
Books, Fuel Oil, and Coffee Crusades
14.
Doctors and Patients in Minnesota
15.
Talking Money and Road Repairs in Minnesota
16.
Romance and Marriage in Minnesota
17.
Living Off the Land, Snowbirds, and So…Then
18.
Wyoming, Golf, and the Law, Minnesota-Style
19.
Non Sequiturs, Rebuttals, and Gifts
20.
Where to Go in Minnesota
21.
Minnesota Minute Mysteries
22.
Though, Groves, Seniors, and Poker Parties
23.
Minnesota Body Language
24.
Directions
25.
I Don’t Know
26.
Lists, the Phone, For Sure, Saying Too Much
27.
The Minnesota Long Good-bye
A Twenty-fifth Anniversary Congratulatory Message from the Chair of the University of Minnesota’s Widely Acclaimed MSL Program
(Minnesotan as a Second Language)
Mr. Mohr’s book has been a staple in our Minnesotan as a Second Language Program for twenty-five years, helping thousands of visitors and new residents to our great state enjoy themselves after they adjust to and learn the language and culture of the Gopher State. And it goes without saying that every summer hordes of tourists from the far-flung parts of our nation arrive for a vacation at a fishing lodge on one of our legendary Ten Thousand Lakes. It is the rare lodge that does not hav
e a tattered copy of How to Talk Minnesotan in each cabin. First-time visitors can, by absorbing just the first two lessons in the guide, talk Minnesotan with the lodge manager or fishing guide without too much embarrassment.
I personally am gratified to learn that the iconic How to Talk Minnesotan will be updated. Mr. Mohr hinted as much a year ago when he gave a lecture to our advanced MSL class on campus. He is provocative and, might I say, quite entertaining, in addition to being relentlessly factual and informative, adhering to the highest academic standards of scholarship and research.
We are especially pleased that one fishing lodge instituted Minnesota language lessons as part of its vacation packages. Lost Walleye Lodge on Leech Lake is owned and operated by the lovely down-to-earth family of Lucy and Ed Humde. Many of the lessons are set to music accompanied by The Muskie Three, a very popular local band, a favorite at hog roasts and Legion halls across northern Minnesota. Other lodges in the busy Leech Lake area often send their out-of-state guests over to Lost Walleye Lodge to brush up on Minnesotan.
As one would expect, tourists from afar returning to Minne-sota’s lake country summer after summer grow increasingly more fluent by studying the visitor’s guide on a rainy day at the lodge, or making forays beyond the lodge to try out their Minnesotan at the casino or the sporting goods shops. A very unusual but gratifying phenomenon has developed in the larger lodges, where thirty cabins might have tourists from several states at the same time, and oddly enough, after a couple of days there, they all naturally revert to Minnesotan as the common language. Lodge guests from New Jersey or Maine, and even Texas, talk Minnesotan to each other so much that they have often been mistaken for Minnesotans after getting back home, where they take a good ribbing for it.
Minnesota companies by the dozens have inserted a copy of How to Talk Minnesotan into the employee packets of new hires from out of state who might have floundered for months, slowing down production and making themselves miserable, without the valuable advice provided in the guide.