Surprising regional words of MN (Duluth, Rochester: transplants, living in, moving)

[tvdxer]

What words have you thought were common terms, until you discovered they were really regionalisms of Minnesota or the surrounding area?

I'll start off with "food shelf", which is known as "food bank" elsewhere. The term seems almost exclusive to Minnesota and the surrounding region.

[snofarmer]

Not as common, but it is used elsewhere.
Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf | 228 North Winooski Ave | Burlington, VT
Perinton Food Shelf, Inc. | P.O. Box 381 | Fairport, NY 14450-0381 | 585-425-7410 | contactus@perintonfoodshelf.orgGreece Ecumenical Food Shelf Inc in Rochester, New York (NY)


What's on tap?

In a bar do you get a tap or a draught?

[dravogadro]

holy buckets

[HiFi]

not sure if its unique to just this area but we refer to highways like this "i am going to take 494 to work" and on the west coast they refer to highways like this "i am going to take the 5 to work" You could probably read into the collective psyches of here and the west coast based on this distinction but i'm not sure what it means. Maybe we feel more endearing to our roads and call them by name, as if 494 is its proper name, not just 'the one of many roads that we happen to call 494'. We do have a more intimate relationship with and a respect for our roads forged by those moments that we are skidding across ice at 60 miles per hour and hoping our traction will recover before sliding out of our lane.

[uptown_urbanist]

On the west coast (California, anyway) the "the" before the freeway number is also a regional thing; southern CA says it, northern CA doesn't. Not sure what central coast people do! I'm also not sure what, if anything, that means about MN -- does it say something about cultural interactions and moving patterns? Or just coincidence? (or if southern CA is the only place that says "the" first, maybe it's just their regional quirk.)

"duck, duck, gray duck" is of course the classic. That seems to be an only in MN thing.

I think I've only heard "parking ramp" here (or Midwest, anyway). On the east coast I mostly heard parking garage, and in CA they said "parking structure".

[snofarmer]

Funny, everyone I know in MN says Duck, Duck, Goose.
I never heard
"duck, duck, gray duck" until I came to this forum.
I will on a occasion when I think about it I'll ask my friends what they thought it was and they all said Duck, duck goose.
Maybe it's a north, south mn thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose


I think ,duck, grey duck came from WI transplants lol

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by HiFi

not sure if its unique to just this area but we refer to highways like this "i am going to take 494 to work" and on the west coast they refer to highways like this "i am going to take the 5 to work"

For what it's worth, Georgia matches Minnesota in that. We take 285 to orbit the metro here, not the 285.

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by snofarmer

Funny, everyone I know in MN says Duck, Duck, Goose.
I never heard
"duck, duck, gray duck" until I came to this forum.
I will on a occasion when I think about it I'll ask my friends what they thought it was and they all said Duck, duck goose.
Maybe it's a north, south mn thing?

Duck, duck, goose - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I think ,duck, grey duck came from WI transplants lol

I grew up in South metro in the 70's-80's and it was duck duck gray duck for me.

[snofarmer]

I grew up in the 60's in northern MN.

Originally Posted by TimtheGuy

I grew up in South metro in the 70's-80's and it was duck duck gray duck for me.

[fromupthere]

I think the duck, duck, goose and duck, duck, gray duck is a northern/southern Minnesota thing. Having grown up in Duluth, it was goose. Didn't hear of gray duck until I moved to Rochester. However, living in Rochester now with thousands of geese, I've always found it quite humerous that it is duck, duck, gray duck here rather than goose.