One of the things I take pride in the Midwest for is our lack of an accent. In other regions, you might hear that New York nasal tone or that Southern twang that makes everything slow down. But then there’s the Midwest. For a lot of folks, that’s the “neutral” ground. It’s the voice of plain-spoken practicality. It doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is, which is why it often goes unnoticed.
Growing up, I remember hearing that TV stations sought out Midwestern folks. They liked hiring anchors from our neck of the woods because we didn’t have those distinct regional markers. It was like we were the blank canvas of the American speaking voice. If you wanted to reach the whole country without sounding like you were from a specific backyard, you looked for someone who sounded like they were just talking to their neighbor over a fence.
Take Tom Brokaw, for instance. He was born and raised in South Dakota and Nebraska. When you see a face like that on national television, and you hear a voice that sounds just like the one you hear locally, it makes you feel like you belong. It’s a small thing, but it matters. It tells you that your way of talking, putting words together without any extra frills, is the standard.
That kind of prominence does something interesting. When the voices of the Midwest get the biggest stages, they start to spread. People in other places hear that steady, level tone and start to adopt it. It becomes the baseline. It’s not about trying to sound like someone else; it’s just that the Midwest voice is so steady it becomes the default for everyone else to move toward. While I say it’s “no accent”, I know others will call it a Midwest accent.
What the Linguists Say#
Linguists have a name for that “neutral” sound: General American. It’s the broad, mostly unmarked accent heard across much of the Midwest and West, and it’s what most national news anchors, voice actors, and GPS voices aim for. It became the broadcast standard partly because it was easy for listeners all over the country to understand, and partly because so many of the people building radio and television came from or trained in the middle of the country.
The funny thing is that linguists will also tell you there’s no such thing as having no accent. Everyone has one. It’s just that when your accent matches what’s on TV, nobody points it out. Some parts of the Midwest have even developed very distinctive sounds. In cities around the Great Lakes, like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, a set of vowel changes known as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift makes words like “bag,” “box,” and “bus” sound noticeably different from how they’re said in other regions. Think of the classic Chicago “da Bears.”
The Giveaways#
Even when the vowels stay neutral, the vocabulary gives us away:
- “Ope!” The all-purpose sound for bumping into someone, dropping something, or needing to squeeze past you in the grocery aisle. It’s half the name of this site.
- Pop, not soda. Mostly, anyway. Wisconsin and the St. Louis area have their own ideas, and parts of Wisconsin will even call a drinking fountain a “bubbler.”
- “You betcha” and “Oh, for cute!” especially in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
- “Ya know?” at the end of a sentence, as a polite way of making sure you’re still with us.
- The long goodbye. Not exactly an accent, but leaving a Midwest gathering takes at least three separate goodbyes: one in the living room, one at the door, and one in the driveway.
Of course, we aren’t completely without our own quirks. You still have the Minnesota “don’t know” that is bizarre in its own right, but for the most part, we’re the steady hand on the steering wheel of the American dialect. We aren’t trying to put on a show. We’re just telling it like it is, and sometimes, that gets people to listen.
