Larry Miller

For reasons impossible to understand, Utahns like Larry Miller. The guy owns sports teams, restaurants, shopping, and too many car dealerships across the Wasatch Front. One might be tempted to believe that Utahns don't like him, and that they simply can't avoid doing business with the guy, sort of like Utahns can't avoid purchasing Chinese crap at Wal-Mart.

However that's not the case. Utahns can purchase cars, movie tickets, meals, and other goods and services from other providers -- Larry hasn't locked the state down yet -- but the fact that his businesses persist and expand tells me that Utahns actually *LIKE* doing business with the guy.

This is confusing. Most Utahns agree that:

• His car dealerships try to rip you off
• His movie theaters suck
• His basketball team sucks
• His restaurants suck

Why do Utahns patronize this sheister? Perhaps due to some commonly-held misconceptions:

Myth: Larry is a local Utahn, and Utahns should support Utah businesses.
Fact: Larry is from Colorado and opened his first car dealership there.
Myth: Larry represents Utah values.
Fact: Larry cares about the almighty dollar and doesn't care who he has to screw to get it.

Or perhaps because Utahns are ignorant (correctly pronounced "ignernt").

The Utah Accent

Utahns like to talk funny. It's true. What's funnier is that Utahns don't think they talk funny. That's because most words are pronounced correctly, but the ones that aren't really stand out - kinda like nails on a chalk board.

This was a topic of conversation at work a while ago. In a nutshell, there are a few rules to correctly pronounce words like a true Utahn:

1. All dipthongs become single vowels. Examples: Sales is pronounced "sells", mail is pronounced "mell", crayon is pronounced "cren" or "cran".
2. Ts are not pronounced unless at the beginning of a word and are replaced with glottal stops. Example: Bit is pronounced "bih" with a glottal stop at the end, kitten is pronounced "ki-uhn" with a glottal stop in the middle.
3. Eliminate middle vowels. Examples: Mirror becomes "mirr", family becomes "famlee".
   
4. If you live away from the Wasatch Front, then you have additional options available to you. Measure becomes "mayzhure", milk becomes "melk", norman (or mormon) becomes "narman" (or "marman"), fork becomes "fark" -- the possibilities are endless.
5. All of the rules above can be combined.
   

One of my favorite examples of this to prove my point came up recently while talking with some folks at work. The conversation went something like this:

Utahn 1: "Jeff went selling on his vacation."
Utahn 2: "Why would he want to sell stuff while on vacation?"
Utahn 1: "What do you mean? He was selling a boat."
Utahn 2: "He had a boat for sell?"
Utahn 1: "No, he went out selling on the lake."
Utahn 2: "Did he go like boat-to-boat or something?"
Utahn 1: "Huh? No, like a sell boat."
Utahn 2: "Oh, you said selling! I thought you were saying selling."

And Utahns don't think they have a problem.

And then there's the made up swear words Utahns use that make no sense. Like "Oh my heck" and "What the crap" or flip/fetch/freak or just plain old 'F' in lieu of saying f**k.

To use some non-Utahn vernacular, just drop the F-bomb or get off the pot.

Stuff Utahns Like

I grew up and went to High School in Utah. Subsequent to High School, I've lived in three different foreign countries, visited at least 6 more, lived in a couple different states, and have worked in many major cities in the US as a consultant.

I only recently moved back to Utah, and it is not an exaggeration to say that Utah is "different" or "weird." This blog is dedicated to both the strange and the unique things Utah has to offer.

Over time, I will probably offend just about everyone who lives here. People need to lighten up - this isn't a Utah sucks blog, but it IS self-deprecating. If I didn't like it here, I'd leave.

I have to give some credit to the Stuff White People Like blog. They were what convinced me to write here. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery -- I mean that.

Happy reading.