Do Michiganders Slur Their Words? Yes or No?

Why do many Michiganders deny that we have an accent? Some may call it a dialect rather than an accent, but there is definitely something afoot when it comes to Michiganese. According to Owlcation.com, “The Michigan accent is actually part of a dialect of American English known as Inland Northern American English or the Great Lakes dialect."

We do slur many words; it’s like we’re trying to save time for some reason. For example, “I am going to” gets slurred to “I’m gunna” and sometimes “I munna.”
“Did you eat yet” comes out “Jeet yet?”

A great example is any word that has a double “T” like ‘mitten’, ‘kitten’ or ‘button’...most of us DO NOT pronounce the ‘t’s’ so it comes out ‘Mih-enn’ or ‘buh-unn’.

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“How am I supposed to” comes out as “how my spose-ta.”
Didn’t - DINT
Wouldn’t - WOONT

Let’s face it, we do talk fast. But this stuff isn’t news...we’ve seen, read, and written about this topic before; but it doesn’t get referred to very often as ‘talking fast’ or ‘slurring’...it’s just the way we talk. The weird thing is, many Michiganders refuse to believe we have an accent or a habit of slurring.

Other than slurring, you’ve seen the lists of Michigan slang terms, and there are many of them. We also have our little pet names for others:

Yoopers: U.P dwellers.
Trolls: Michiganders who live below the bridge. Another term is ‘Flatlanders.’
Fudgies: This is what we call tourists.
FIPs and FOPs: This is what Michiganders near the southern border call visitors from Illinois and Ohio: “(Effing) Illinois People" and “(Effing) Ohio People".

Still deny you have an accent? Have someone secretly record you sometime and pay attention when it’s played back.