Linguistic patterns in Utah (question #68779)

[Cindy]

Original question here: http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/68779/

It's a common misconception that the glottal stop in the middle of words like "mountain" is a Utah phenomenon, but it's not Utah-specific. In fact, this study found that people from other western states actually glottalize more. Where I grew up in California, everyone used a glottal t for words like "mountain" and "button," and nobody had a problem with it. In my opinion, it's the weird phobia about glottal stops that is the true Utah phenomenon.

[Marduk]

Cindy, I'd been of the same (mis)conception until I paid attention to how NPR pronounces it (since they usually have style guides for such things) and they glottal stop! I was shocked.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Seriously. Someone once mentioned that glottal stop thing to me, and I started to be really self conscious about it, until I noticed that literally every person I ever talked to also did it.

[Katya]

Linguistics paradox number whatever: The way you talk when you're paying attention to how you talk isn't representative of how you normally talk.

[mic0]

I think that article points out that there is a slight difference between the way Utahans glottalize words and the way other people do. It has to do with how the sound is released - in Utah, it is released through the mouth rather than nasally. Which is a slight difference that you can hardly hear, but it does make the Utah glottal stop a little different from other ones.

Also, from MSJ's answer, isn't "sluff" from the Northeast? I thought it was Yiddish-related or something.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I heard a bunch of my mission companions say it--notably, the two from Utah. And none of the others. Everyone else said "ditch" or "skip". In fact, the first time I heard "sluff", I heard it and did not understand (+1 Chinese grammar principle!).

[Marduk]

I've always heard it "cut."

[Craig Jessop]

There's this girl in one of my classes who seems to have this weird obsession with pronouncing things "properly." She pointedly avoids the glottal stop, in the middle and at the end of words. It sounds stilted and awkward. Maybe that's just my Western American dialect speaking, but I wish she could allow herself to pronounce words like the rest of the world does!

(examples: Columbus wouldn'T yielD to the pressure of his so-ver-eignS).

[bobtheenchantedone]

I pronounce things like that when I sing. Bothers Marduk no end. But that's what a choral eduction does for ya.

[UffishThought]

Ooh! one of the ones I've started noticing is "couple few." As in "I'll just talk for a couple few minutes about this-and-such, and then we can move on." Listen for it. It's not excessively common, but it's around.

[yayfulness]

My ex-boss said "a couple three" all the time. I have never heard that phrase from anyone else.

[Unit of Energy]

My sister makes a point to pronounce the t sound everywhere. It gets on my nerves sometimes, but whatever.

Sluff is a word I feel like I've always known, but never used. The only two people I know who use it are my friend from south-east Idaho and my friend from West Valley, Utah. Or somewhere thereabouts.

[Yog in Neverland]

Eh, it's not just a Utah thing (which I thought I clarified in my answer, but it looks like I deleted that sentence...) but it's very clear in slow-talking farmers, and when said slowly, most people say words like "mountain" without a glottal stop. But from the small farmer town I'm from, it becomes even *more* glottalized. And that, my dear Cindy, *is* a Utah thing.

[Katya]

Eh, it's not just a Utah thing (which I thought I clarified in my answer, but it looks like I deleted that sentence...) but it's very clear in slow-talking farmers, and when said slowly, most people say words like "mountain" without a glottal stop. But from the small farmer town I'm from, it becomes even *more* glottalized. And that, my dear Cindy, *is* a Utah thing.

Are you sure it's not a rural/urban thing? (I.e., have you talked to small town farmers from other states?)

[Yog in Neverland]

Are you sure it's not a rural/urban thing? (I.e., have you talked to small town farmers from other states?)

I'm sure it's just a rural thing, not an only-Utah-farmers thing. I've been around a fair amount of farmers (from other places) in my day, though I'm definitely not from a farming family. ^-^ But still, you do hear it in Utah a lot, especially the specific word "maou-uhn." It's noticeable enough and Utah has enough rural areas that talk about maou-uhns commonly that I figured it merited a mention in an answer.
Sigh.

[Laser Jock]

Ooh! one of the ones I've started noticing is "couple few." As in "I'll just talk for a couple few minutes about this-and-such, and then we can move on." Listen for it. It's not excessively common, but it's around.

My ex-boss said "a couple three" all the time. I have never heard that phrase from anyone else.

Yeah, I've definitely heard both of those and never thought anything of them (though I don't use them myself), since they're equivalent to "two to three" or "two to four-ish."* For some reason I don't think I've heard them in a while, though. (Also, I'd punctuate both with a hyphen, given that they're expressing a range, but obviously that's less clear when spoken. )

* With the usual caveat that different people have different ideas of what "a couple" and "a few" mean, numerically.

[UnluckyStuntman]

Ooh! one of the ones I've started noticing is "couple few." As in "I'll just talk for a couple few minutes about this-and-such, and then we can move on." Listen for it. It's not excessively common, but it's around.

My ex-boss said "a couple three" all the time. I have never heard that phrase from anyone else.

Oooh, I've got one! I've only heard this in Utah and Idaho, but it drives me crazy: "The car needs washed," vs. "The car needs to be washed." I get twitchy when people use that first one...

[Yarjka]

I know a few people (my wife included) who add a 't' at the end of 'across'. I don't think that's a specifically Utah phenomenon, though.

I definitely have a serious glottal stop in 'mountain' and other words, and I think there is something unique about the Utah version of the glottal stop, because I've had people comment on it.

"Up a crick" is very Utah, but I think it's just rural pronunciation. I still say it that way, since that's how I learned the phrase, even though I say 'creek' correctly otherwise.

[No Dice]

I was thrilled to see more discussion on this. Like Katya seems to suggest, I think almost all of this stuff is rural/urban, not Utah—glottal stop things, "couple three" (definitely not just Utah), and even substituting "ar" for "or" in words like horse, corn, or American Fork. The cord/card merger and milk/melk are discussed here (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/3550 ... tml?pg=all), and neither seems peculiar to Utah.

Maybe there's some weird explanation in that Provo is an unusually large population center situated only miles from lots of pretty rural communities (though this certainly can't only be true in Utah either), so many people, especially out-of-staters, come in much closer contact with rural dialects than they would in most places. But that's just shooting from the hip.

Also, I don't think sluff is Northeastern (are you thinking of schlep, Mico? It looks like sluff is a variant of slough, which has German roots, so maybe there's some Yiddish going on in there somewhere, but I dunno...).

As a Utahn, I don't notice most of this stuff much, but I do notice "acrost" rather than "across" and "excape" rather than "escape." But once again, I'm skeptical of these being "Utah" things. I'd be interested to hear more about dill/deal and fill/feel, though. Funny article on fill/feel here that has to do with a gas station robbery (see, now your curiosity is piqued): http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=3058039.

[Yarjka]

I thought of one more that I do: 'melk' instead of 'milk'. Drives my wife crazy, but it takes great concentration for me to say it the right way and it sounds downright bizarre to me when I do.