Minnesota slang: regional words, sayings, and how locals talk.
This page collects regional vocabulary from Minnesota: slang you'll hear in conversation, sayings that travel through families, and pronunciations that mark a person as a local. Pick a city to narrow the list, or keep "All cities" to see the full Minnesota picture.
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The friendly-but-conflict-averse Minnesota disposition.
The Minnesota version of "duck duck goose."
Wisconsin: a traffic signal / stoplight.
Minnesota affirmative: 'absolutely, you can count on it.'
Upper Midwest sentence-tag: 'you know.'
Dakotas diner staple: open-faced roast beef on bread with mashed potatoes and gravy.
A burger stuffed with cheese sealed inside the patty, so it melts into a molten core.
Chocolate-coated honeycomb toffee with a brittle, airy interior, a Buffalo specialty.
Wisconsin's brandy-not-whiskey take on the old fashioned, often 'sweet' with 7-Up.
Fast Canadian low that crashes temps overnight.
The deadly November gales on the Great Lakes.
A rubber band; often shortened to just 'binder' in Minnesota.
Upper Midwest English, centered on Minnesota and Wisconsin, carries the strong Scandinavian and German heritage of the region. "Uff da" expresses dismay or being overwhelmed; "ope" slips out when you bump into someone; "you betcha" agrees; and "Minnesota nice" describes the polite, conflict-avoiding manner that the speech reflects. A casserole is a "hotdish", the long o vowels are famously rounded, and the whole accent was affectionately exaggerated in the film Fargo. Behind the friendliness is a genuinely distinct regional dialect.
Minnesota and Upper Midwest slang includes "uff da" (an expression of dismay), "ope" (said when you bump into someone), "you betcha" (agreement), "hotdish" (a casserole), and the politeness culture summed up as "Minnesota nice".
"Uff da" is an exclamation borrowed from Norwegian, used to express being overwhelmed, surprised, tired, or mildly dismayed — roughly "oof" or "good grief". It is a hallmark of Minnesota and Upper Midwest speech.
"Ope" is a small reflexive exclamation said when you bump into someone or something — "ope, sorry, just gonna sneak past ya". It is strongly associated with the Midwest.
