UseTaKood

After reading Ben's Blog this morning and going to New York a few weeks back, I was reminded of the time I spent living in Texas. No, not because living ANYWHERE outside of Utah is all the same but because of accents. I miss a lot about Texas, the cheap real estate, the great food, and the awesome people. I was laughing to myself on the plane ride home from NY about some co-workers I had and how they used to make fun of what they said was MY Accent. Accent? What accent could I have, I am from Utah. Since this was Texas where I lived and as everyone knows (even the Texans themselves) there is no more recognizable accent than that of a Texan, I found it hilarious that I was targeted for my accent. How could a Texan say I had an accent? One of my co-workers was from Mexico too so he had a couple of accents going on at the same time.

But Utah is not exactly known for it's drawl. At least that is what I thought. They used to laugh at me for saying "where are we going?" and asked me to repeat it on several occasions. How many ways can you say "where are we going?". Rather than argue with them, I would say something general in the thickest southern Texas accent I could, making any grammatical error I could think of like wer n'hel is all y'als goin" It was funny to me how, even in the most professional of business settings, something like that phrase would come out of someone sometimes. But, nevertheless and not withstanding, they refused to recant their insistence that I had an accent.

One Christmas while still living in Texas, my family visited Utah after several years away and I was astounded. Sure enough, even Utahns do have accents. We have all heard the jokes about "Oh my heck", "Can I have a pop?" and "gosh". But I did not realize the extent of it all until my mother said that she had to go to Salt Lake and she would not be back until Tuesdee. Tuesdee? I think she meant Toos-Day (Tuesday) but she said Toos-Dee. All of these Utahisms became apparent to me during my visit when I was listening for them. Another great Utahism is my sister-in-law's favorite, which is the word usetacood. I guess you would say it is one word, or is it three? I am not sure. My spellchecker is now emitting smoke from working on this entry. From what I can gather, "usetacood" is really "used to could" or "used to be able to". For example, I usetacood speak English, but now I can't. Interesting. As are the words "squeet" (let's go eat) and "chout!" (watch out), among others. My friend Hill likes to say "crap snacks" and "Dad Gummit" and the guy is only 32 and has all his original teeth, not 102 with dentures like you may have guessed. One of the funniest people I know, Kerry Sherman, can do this impersonation of a Santa Clara Bishop that made me cry I was laughing so hard, you have to hear it.

But every place has its accents I guess. Like in New York for some reason everyone can say the F word like they are getting paid to say it and it is no big deal. Little kids, old ladies, Mormons, it does not matter out there. As I continued to deal with these co-workers in Texas, I took heart in the fact that there were a great deal more Texasisms than Utahisms. Simply using very poor grammar usually shut them up for a few days. They would argue that Texans don't really speak like that and I would then remind one particular colleague of the time that we spent a year together in East Texas one week. East Texas is amazing. If you ever get the chance and I have no earthly idea why you would, but if you do you MUST go. It is like you invented a time machine. Once I reminded my colleague of East Texas he knew I was playing my Trump Card in the Utah v Texas debate and he would sheepishly bow his head in shame and defeat and admit that I was right. I am just glad these two never met my mother or sister-in-law. That usetacood be bad.