Talk:Utah English

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Utah English article.
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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 16 December 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

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[edit] Distinct enough to warrant an article?

Having lived in Utah virtually all of my life---in Salt Lake and Davis Counties, and having an interest in linguistics, I question the validity of a lot of these statements. I agree with the insertion of "t" like teat-cher and Wilt-son, which is definitely noticeable. To some extent I can see the glottal stop argument. And sure, "Oh My Heck" and "Gol", "Fricken" etc etc are pretty much euphemisms native to Utah, and there are a lot of LDS-related words that have strange pronunciations like "patriarchal", but does that qualify Utah to have its own dialect of American English? While I think it's kind of cool to have our own dialect, I'd have to say no.

A lot of these ideas are just stereotypical expressions that really aren't in mainstream use---"fer" is simply a part stereotypical redneck speech.

I've heard the ar-or merger, but again, it's more of a stereotype than a reality. I've never heard ANYBODY say anything like "I was barn in a born", nor "playzhur" for "pleasure"---"ayg" for "egg" MAYBE, but even that's a stretch. I've NEVER heard "fer cute" or "fer ignert" and I'd probably stare blankly at anyone saying this, despite being a Utahn.

The [oʊ], [ʊ] merger is weak at best. I hear a clear difference between polar and puller, poll and pull, and bowl and bul3.

Perhaps "Utahnics" is more specifically targeted at rural Utah, or perhaps refers to sociolect or specific regions? If so, this should be specified.

In my personal opinion, I don't think Utah's speech patterns are distinct enough to warrant an article on our own "dialect". I'm not going to impose my on Wikipedia, but am just throwing it out there. SLC1 14:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


I've lived in Utah all of my life, and I questioned the validity of such a "dialect," too...until last semester. One of my professors at BYU asked us (her class) to help her fellow professor with a study he was doing on people's perceptions of "Utah accents." I guess it's a tiny, albeit growing, branch of American linguistics. The examples in the article may seem pretty exaggerated, and you're probably right about the rural emphasis (I'll make a little note of it in the article), but...have you ever spent much time talking with a Spanish "Fark" native? Even the well-educated ones sound like they just rolled off the hay wagon!  :) And it's a (relatively) big town... Cathryn 18:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Interestingly, the "playzhur" instead of "pleasure" thing is common in Montana, at least around Billings - we don't live in the Treasure State, we live in the Trayzhur State. Egg, bag, and flag go to ayg, bayg, and flayg. Montana doesn't border Utah and isn't primarily Mormon, as far as I know, so... maybe the page needs to be widened to "Mountain West" and so forth. (Do people in Alberta and Saskatchewan talk this way?)
Yeah, my choir director is from Montana and he's always telling us which "mayzher" to start rehearsing from. But his pronunciation of "measuring spoon" has the short [ɛ] vowel, so he isn't even consistent. User:Angr 08:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
"I don't think Utah's speech patterns are distinct enough to warrant an article on our own 'dialect'." I do. I hear its like nowhere else in the U.S. It does seem to be unique. So much so that I can identify a native Utahn very quickly by hearing it. And unlike other dialects, it's strongly associated with a church culture (in this case, Mormon). So I think it's valid. - Brother Brigham
I've lived in Southern Utah most of my life, and while "Sluff" is certainly in use, I've never even heard of any of the other listed 'vocab'. There are a few things, like the city "Hurrikin" (instead of Hurricane), but I think that's borrowing from British, if anything. Corral also makes my mother wince when it's pronounced "Correl" down here, but other than that, we're not hicks, and this article is pretty much irrelevant to most people in metropolitan areas in the state. Though, I confess, we do seem to have a problem with taking the 't' from mountain and picture and sticking it in teacher. Down in Washington County, though, we're starting to sound more like Northern Californians, with the amount of people moving here. Only old-time residents sound like this. KrypticKlaws 06:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KrypticKlaws (talk • contribs)

[edit] "Utahnics?"

Is there a reputable source for this appellation? Not just some guy's web page. --Grouse 21:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I first saw the word in an article I received almost ten years ago. It came to me via e-mail without an author listed. 151.207.242.4 20:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC) Me.

I am a linguist and have been born and raised in Utah. While there are instances of a 'Utah' dialect, it isn't much different from the rest of the mountain West, nor is it very widespread. I find the statements in the article very questionable. --IbnBatriq 05:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm specifically talking about the name "Utahnics" of which I am unconvinced by one web page. It has >650 Google hits though. Here's a NPR story about it that uses the term however. --Grouse 07:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, judging by the NPR story (and the other Googled stuff, like Grouse mentioned), I'm betting the word "Utahnics" is fair game. But how do we feel about calling it a "dialect," still? Like you said, IbnBatriq, I'm not convinced things are as stark or as widespread as this article makes them sound. What do we think? Cathryn 06:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I live in Utah too, and I can vouch that these things are very characteristic of the Jello Belt in general, but not as much so in places with greater recently-immigrated populations of non-LDS, such as Salt Lake, Ogden and Park City. Though the Jello Belt applies to a larger region than Utah, the Wasatch Front is indisputably its cultural center. - Gilgamesh 07:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm from Utah and I use it.--Ayatollah Gurkhmeini 19:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I have heard the term Utahnics used before. I live in Utah, and I can say that most of these are true. It's just an improperly-named article. bob rulz 00:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I do think this subject definitely merits its own article although I agree with others down below--it would make sense to broaden to "Intermountain English" or "Mormon Culture Region English". Utah and its Mormon Culture neighbors have quite distinctive speech patterns. Some of the points the article makes are quite valid, although I agree listing out the slang and so forth is just silly and trivia-like.

Stuff I would want to see: - Lots more info on vowel shifts/mergers. This is worth doing the article for alone--across the board vowel shifts/mergers are happening practically real-time: sell/sale, school/skull, pole/pull, etc. and people are completely dropping dipthongs. Examples where people misspell the words because they don't make a distinction in pronunciation. Ironically, I personally think the born/barn phenomenon (which is mentioned in the article) is waning while there's all this more interesting stuff to look at. - New vowels are strikingly similar to AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). How on earth did that happen? - Word preservation from early 20th, e.g. "show" for movie. - Look at prosody. People have a sing-song way of speaking in this region. - Issues in sociolectology: clearly an important part of the discussion, although not sufficient to explain what's going on, e.g. why do non-Mormons in this region adopt the "Mormon" speech patterns?

This is a very dynamic linguistic area--these changes are happening very quickly and are quite divergent from what's going on in the rest of the country. I totally disagree that these changes are becoming less pronounced in this region--I think they are becoming more active. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.146.15.194 (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nominating for Deletion

Seriously. "Utah English"? I don't think that this could be considered a dialect of English. If so, then every U.S. State would have its own dialect. Hmm, "Rhode Island English"? "Wisconsin English"? I dunno. Comments? The RSJ - SPEAKThe RSJ at the RS Wiki 04:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with you sir or mam (no male chauvinism intended). I am from the General American part of Illinois (West Central), and we do many of the things in our speech that are listed in this article, therefore it must not be unique.

I'm sorry if you were offended. But the article is perfectly valid and shoudn't be deleted.
I'll elaborate.:
Having had the great misfortune of spending the first 22 years of my existence as a resident of what's now known as the city of Holladay, Utah..
Having have spent most of my life since that time as a resident of Phoenix in the neighboring state of Arizona and...
Having spent 8 years as a resident of Atlanta, Georgia (before returning to Arizona) and...
Having traveled extensively all over the United States and..
Having visited several European countries where English is widely spoken.
I can state unequivocally that with a few minor exceptions (e.g. "'fer" is unique to hicks, no matter where they live in the United States), this article is dead on accurate.
While I'd never heard the terms "Utah English" or "Utahanics" (the latter is a rather silly title if you ask me) until now, I do know that the backward home of....:
  • Green Jello (with carrots and whipped cream mixed in -YUCK).
  • Taxpayer funded "Seminary" in public schools,
  • The only television network (NBC) affiliate in the country that sends regular network programming it deems "inappropriate for this market" to another station in the *same* market who then gladly airs it (I guess they're heathens at that station)
  • "Private Clubs" that sell you alcoholic beverages that are stronger than those sold in clubs outside of Utah (or did they do away with that mini bottle nonsense?).
    • (OK, that last one wasn't backward, I rather liked it myself back in the day. - A mixed drink, stronger than I'd get in a club in California, Colorado, Florida or wherever thanks to those out of state clubs only adding a shot of liquor to my dink where in Utah I'd get a whole mini bottle).
......has (appropriately enough) A backward language all it's own.
Dialects are everywhere, but you rarely find them confined to such a unique area such as a single state.
Southern dialects run from Texas to Georgia and from West Virginia to Florida. New England dialects cover... New England. There are plenty of pronunciations and phrases that can be attributed to most of the Midwest. And yes, the single state of California has it's unique dialects (notably in Southern California). But California has over 33 million people, so they're more like another country than another state. ;-)
But little ole Utah stands out. Culturally it's about as unique as it gets (depending on how one defines "culture" that is)..
But I digress....
There were a few omissions from this article. I'm too lazy to add them. Notably the word "creek" pronounced as "crick".
And don't get me started on Tooele......
This article is quite valid. It should not be deleted.

--angrykeyboarder (a/k/a:Scott) 04:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm only going to respond to the "crick" comment. Yes, many Utahns do say "crick" and "ruhf" instead of "roof", but not all of them. I know many native Utahns who say "creek" and "roof", and I still stand strong on my belief of this not being a valid English dialect. •The RSJ• (Main Hub - Rants) 20:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Just living in a place for a while doesn't mean you understand dialects. 208.104.45.20 22:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

-should we also delete the articles on English in Boston, New York, and New Orleans because they all drop the letter R after vowels? sloshmo 2:55, 26 September 2007

I've heard and used "Sluff", bu never even heard of "Borrow Pit", "Jockey Box", "Spinnin' Brodies", or "Fer". And I've lived in Utah for the past sixteen years (since I was born) and now live in California. I have noticed VERY little difference in the way Californians speak. The majority of this article seems to be stereotyping Utahns. Though the glottal stop at "T"s is very popular, it is usually not very noticeable. i.e. Layton is said Lay-en, not Lay-UHN. More just ignoring the "T" than an actual glottal stop... Utahnics? NO. ayg and layg instead of egg and leg? Not often enough to be noticed in Wikipedia. The only "or" to "ar" I've ever heard is in "Spanish Fark", usually to make fun of the hick population of Spanish Fork who say it like that (though I've never actually heard someone actually say it...). With the probly and prolly? I've heard "wolf" turn into "woof". But then again, I've heard that outside of Utah as well. (OOh, and I knew one person who said "breft-us" instead of "breakfast". In conclusion: this article should be deleted or, at the very least, heavily modified to reduce stereotyping. And maybe not as a "dialect" of Utah. 71.103.163.114 04:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)YeoungBraxx

[edit] "Utah Slang"?

Does this actually have anything to do with a dialect? Minor vocabulary differences & regional slang don't have much to do with a dialect in the sense of pronunciation, I'm thinking. Comments? Cathryn 07:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think slang could be discussed in this article, but the segment should be worded differently. Alternatively, a 'Utah Mormon Culture' article could be created, and this could be discussed there. IbnBatriq 04:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Although slang might be appropriate as part of a discussion of the dialect, most of the info here is not useful. "DTR," "NCMO," etc., are by no means limited to Utah or to Mormon culture. Neither is shortening place names to initials--witness IC (Iowa City) and CR (Cedar Rapids) in Iowa or even KC (Kansas City), OKC (Oklahoma City). Similar: references to cities by their airport codes (ICT is a popular appelation for Wichita, KS).--Velvet elvis81 13:36, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

-All very true. I don't see any significant content in the section as it currently stands. I'm going to remove it, but feel free to revert & edit if you see anything worth saving. Cathryn 06:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

-The slang that was added wasn't to say that abbreviations were unique to Utah, but to give examples. Living outside of Utah now I have to watch myself not to use terms like "the Y" or "the U", and if someone had just moved to the state they'd probably have little idea what I meant by "I have to drive home to AF for FHE." Some of these also mark age and religious affiliation and are arguably very sociolinguistically relevant. Also, why do people also delete the word "sluff" whenever I try to add it to this article? I've never heard it anywhere else and it immediately marks you as being from Utah. sloshmo 14:50, 26 Sept 2007

[edit] The Dees of the Week

How about Mondee, Tuesdee, Wednesdee, Thursdee, Fridee, Saturdee and... THE SABBATH? I only hear that -dee thing from Utahns. 151.207.242.4 20:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC) Brother Brigham


You people obviously don't get out of Utah very much. Nothing stated in this article is unique to Utah. I've heard every single one of these pronunciations in eastern Washington state. Regardless, dialect is so much more than minor pronunciation changes. What about different vocabulary or grammar usage?

I agree. Dialect is not just pronunciation. That would be accent. 208.104.45.20 18:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some Thoughts

First of all, a lot of the things in this article are not unique at all. I do many of these things in my everyday speech, and so do my friends, and we live in Illinois, and are not Mormon. I think those things should be taken out. So I did take them out. Some of the information is kind of unique, but I question how widespread it is. Also, I think the name of this article should be something like "LDS English", because the speech of some people in the movie Napoleon Dynamite sounds similar to this, and that takes place in southeastern Idaho. However, the one thing that area does have in common with Utah is Mormons. I guess what I am trying to say is that this seems like more of a sociolect spoken by many Mormons, than a dialect unique to the state of Utah. I think there should be more emphasis in this article on replacement words. I thought information on those used to be in this article. Maybe I'm wrong. 208.104.45.20 04:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

  1. "LDS English" is inaccurate: non-Mormons in the region share the dialect, once Mormon and rural stereotypes are taken out, making this a dialect, not a sociolect. As you point out, it's more widespread than just Utah, and a more accurate regional name might be "Mormon Corridor English". 190.188.219.36 (talk) 00:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

However, it is still not a very unique dialect. I would just consider it part of the dialect of the western United States. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 22:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another Comment

"The unique pronunciations of the dialect, as is typical of American accents, are most marked in the speech of rural and older residents." Where did you get this info.? 208.104.45.20 06:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)