Ay bane from Minnesooota, ya know, back ven I vass a boy. Ay didn't tink about accents an dat sort of ting.

Now I've lived in Indiana for forty years, and with the help of the old "Minnesota Language Systems" ads on Prairie Home Companion I recognize a lot that goes on in my own speech--particularly the understatement, playing down. My Hoosier wife assures me that she can hear Minnesota in my speech, and particularly in that of my relatives--the cadences, the understatement, the "ya betchas" and so on. Fargo was, yes, an exaggeration, but not that much of one.

Dave Oesterreich