Oh Yah! Dat’s a Good vun!

Blame me for stereotyping, but they really do talk that way in the city of Fargo, North Dakota!

I just finished a fun weekend of speaking at a church in Fergus Falls in Minnesota, a small town about an hour’s drive from the Fargo airport. From Fargo to Fergus Falls I was immersed in Scandinavian culture. The weather is cold, the accents are thick, but the people are warm and personable.

As soon as they discovered I was from California, the response was usually, “Oh, California. Nice weather there, eh?”

That’s the thing about this northern country. It’s really easy to adapt to their language. You just need to add any one of these phrases to the end of your sentence

…eh?

…don’tcha know?

…you betcha!

Or if you really want to emphasize something…

…Ufta!

I have know idea what “Ufta” actually means, but I think it is the sound that a person riding a snowmobile makes when he crashes into a snow bank. Snowmobiling is big out here don’tcha know! (At least they aren’t like California where we just end every interaction by exclaiming, “Dude!”)

I think the cold weather here affects electronics. When I first got in my rental car, my GPS started blinking and then went black for three seconds before finally rebooting itself. I kid you not, when it came on again, the voice changed to a lady speaking German or Norwegian. I thought, Even the electronics are swayed to speak Scandinavian out here.
“Ufta!”

All said and done, the trip was really rewarding. I never saw any wood chippers, but I did hear “you betcha” more times than one could count.

Dude!