Ben Bromley: Palin one of us? You betcha!
I have surprising news for every Midwesterner: Sarah Palin is one of us. Kinda sorta. Sure, she’s from Alaska — or, as she likes to put it, just a breaststroke away from Russia. But recently University of Wisconsin linguists proved what many of us suspected the moment she took the podium after being introduced as John McCain’s running mate: She sounds like she’s from Stoughton. Or, as the locals call it, Stoooooton. As she spoke into the microphone that August 2008 day before a national television audience, men across the Midwest had the same reaction: "Wow, the governor of Alaska is HOT!" Eventually, after ogling her for several minutes, we came upon another realization: "She talks just like one of us. "But how can this be? She’s not from this area. And if she was, we would have noticed, because there aren’t that many hot chicks around here. I wonder if she plays sheepshead?" Palin speaks just like the people you know: Leavin’ the g’s off the ends of her words, throwin’ in lots of "you betchas" and even the occasional "heck" and "darn," and referencin’ her "gramma." Heck, she darn well coulda been actin’ in dat movie "Fargo," hey? But how come? Three UW linguists sought to find out, and will detail their findings in a research article to be published next month in the Journal of English Linguistics. This publication is known for its swimsuit issue: Talk about HOT! They analyzed 7,640 words Palin spoke during the 2008 campaign, of which roughly 100 made sense. Throw out the "doggones," and that figure drops to about 20. Researchers say Palin’s Midwestern accent can be traced to the 1930s. It was then that farmers from the Upper Midwest settled the valleys around Palin’s hometown of Wasilla as part of a government program to start an agricultural community. The linguists said Palin exhibits Upper Midwestern speech patterns. She pronounces the word "feel" like "fill" and "peel" like "pill." They found she dropped the "-ing" at the end of words nearly 12 percent of the time, and used words like "darn" and "heck." She also used phrases such as "shout out," but that says nothing about her accent: That has more to do with her being a walking Bratz doll. This doesn’t seem to bother many people around the country. Palin is on the verge of becoming a bestselling author with her memoir, "Going Rogue." This is a refreshing development, if only because her signing tour has forced the would-be vice president to actually enter several bookstores. It is a bit embarrassin,’ for those of us of a different political stripe, bein’ associated with such a controversial conservative. Here in da Upper Midwest we prefer to keep our views to ourselves. Dat is, unless we get to arguin’ over NFC North football or which is da best ice fishin’ spot in town. When we hear an accent like Sarah Palin’s, we keep expectin’ her to offer us some hot dish or say somethin’ about the best way to field-dress a moose. But instead, she insists on talkin’ ’bout politics and da media, and dat natural gas pipeline nobody outside Alaska cares about. The problem is, we have enough of our own embarrassing poster children down here — we don’t need Alaskans promoting the national stereotype that all who elongate their vowels — "Hey, Butch, hand me a soooooooooda" — are provincial twits. Thanks to Palin’s quirks, so famously parodied by Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live," we can’t wink and say "you betcha" without being assumed to be one of her followers. Oh, well. There’s not much we can do about it. Palin comes from Midwestern stock, and we should embrace her as one of our own. At least she isn’t as embarrassing as some of the Upper Midwest’s other products, which include Jesse Ventura, Joe McCarthy and — ugh — Tom Arnold. Let us embrace her with typical Midwestern hospitality. Come on into the parlor, Sarah, and have some hot dish, and perhaps even a toddy. Just don’t mention that Brett Favre fella. He tends to get us riled up somethin’ fierce. Contact columnist Ben Bromley at bbromley@capitalnewspapers.com