The dialect heard in the state of Utah includes lexical items such as the hotdish casserole called funeral potatoes, as well as the mayo-ketchup condiment called fry sauce, and a particular type of scone, also called fry bread. Utah is also known for its dirty sodas, which contain multiple ingredients such as syrup or fruit. In the Mountain West, you’ll hear talk about fourteeners, “mountains that stand at least 14,000 feet” and powder days, referring to great skiing conditions after a good snow, and red rock, or red sandstone. In addition, the speech of many Utahans features a vowel merger in which heal and hill sound similar, and the word barn sounds like “born” and born sounds like “barn.” The difference between Anglophone and Hispanophone settlement patterns are reflected in the different terms butte and mesa. Then there’s the Latter-Day Saints’ influence in the use of ward for a local congregation. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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