Project lead Dr. Betsy Sneller is featured in this Detroit Free Press article on the Michigan English accent. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/05/19/michigan-accent-language-msu-speech-dialect/83720693007
Have I ever petted a wild animal? Actually, I'll tell you the story. When we were in Yellowstone, we went to this wild prairie dog land, and one of the momma prairie dogs came out, and -- 'cause we were sprinkling Cheerios everywhere. And one of the momma prairie dogs came out, and she got so close to my hand, she almost took the Cheerio from it. And then we saw her little babies pop up. I think I've petted -- I actually don't know. I don't know if I have. I didn't pet the prairie dog, but I'm trying to think if I ever did. Oh, I've touched a stray cat. Does that count? I don't know.
I wanted to make today as an announcement because it's been a historical day for all of us. I'll start off from the beginning. In my fourth period class, this would have been around one o'clock, I had just walked in, and a girl had asked me, "Hey, I think you mentioned it before, but you're Catholic, right?" And I was like, that's really random what's going on, I mean I didn't say that, but I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I am." And she's like, "Oh my gosh, there was just white smoke over the Vatican." Do you know what that means? That means they elected a new pope. Guys, this is my first ever pope election. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's incredible." So I sent text messages to my family group chat, and my mom was like, "Yeah, I saw!" And so that meant in a few minutes, the new pope would be coming out of the balcony. But I was in the middle of class so I couldn't see, but I was in the middle of like a independent work time for our assignments, so I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'll be able to find out." But I didn't need to because my mom had sent me a picture. It turns out for the first time ever, we were going to have an American pope. For the first time ever guys, it's like actually crazy ‘cause if you think about it, Christianity has been around for 2000 years, which means Catholicism has been around for 2000 years. And like, Catholicism has only ever been over in the Americas for not even 500 years yet. That's like, it's only been over here about 75% of the time that the Catholicism has existed. That's insane! I mean, it's only 25% of the, only 25% of the time Catholicism has been existing. That's insane guys. Like the implications of that are crazy. I am living in the time of the first ever American pope. I also lived in the time of the first ever Argentinian, non-Caucasian pope, but I didn't realize that. Because I thought Pope Francis was Caucasian. But I was personally rooting for the African, uh, or Filipino, um, what's it called, cardinals? I was very, very surprised that the American guy won. I was very, very, very surprised. I think there was another American…
Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio Oh, that time where [name] and I drove down -- well I drove, and he just came along for the ride -- down to Toledo to go to the art museum as part of our side trip because I-it was [name's] 40th birthday. And he liked a particular kind of liqueur. You cannot get it shipped to Michigan, so I had it shipped to a UPS Store in Toledo. We went, got lunch, you know, picked up his present. I kept one for myself and got him one, which he was very amazed, like, "Where did you get this?" Like, "I drove my a** to Toledo to get this for you." But we go to this art museum, and they have a whole exhibit on glass blowing. And there's one where it's "The Scents of Glassblowing," and he takes a sniff of something and goes, "Oh my God! It smells like farts." And I went, "Why would it smell like farts?" Because, you know, sulfur. And I get close and I take a small whiff and go, "Oh my God, it smells like farts." I didn't think it was gonna be that bad. I think I said, "It can't be that bad." Oh, it was that bad. That was, um -- and yet everyone after us kept doing it, too! Like dude, did you not just hear us say it smells like farts, like, really bad farts at that? Yeah, lesson learned. Someone says it smells like farts, don't go and see if they're right.
We used to play tether ball all the time, and I was always the goody two shoes, and I would tell on kids for swearing. And this one time, my fingers got knotted up in the chain that was connected to the ball. Why we had chains instead of ropes, I don't know. But we had a chain on our ball and my fingers got twisted up in the chain and mangled, and it hurt. And I remember the fella's name even, telling me, "Go ahead and say it. Go ahead and say it." And I said the F-word for the first time ever. It was worse than flipping the bird. I was in the sixth grade, and I said the F-word out loud. And I knew that the Earth was gonna open up and swallow me whole. But that didn't happen. I got untangled, and he was like, "How did that feel? It felt good, didn't it?" And he was right. It felt good to say it.
My teacher told me that she was proud of me for not following the rules. I had to take my history IB exam on Monday, and I was kind of freaking out in my history teacher's room. I had been studying and preparing for this exam for literally two years, but I still felt like I knew nothing. And, I mean, I spent a lot of time on my weekend studying. But I didn't spend all of my time on my weekend studying. I went and hung out with some people. And I'm basically having a mental breakdown in my history teacher's room, because whenever I do something that's not studying before I have an exam, even if I like way over prepared for this exam and spent a lot of my time studying, my brain just starts blaming itself and saying, "You didn't prepare enough for that exam. What are you doing? You're gonna fail." So I'm in her room having a panic attack, and she stops me and is like, "Hey, you okay? What's going on?" And I basically told her, "I went and I did something fun this weekend, and I probably should’ve studied more and now, like my psyche is all messed up." And she's just says "Stop right there. I know that you are all in your head and your parents make you all in your head about the fact that school has to be before everything and that you need to study and study and study. But I am proud of you for breaking those rules. I am proud of you for not studying for the assessment that is for my class and for going out and doing something fun." And I feel like that is the first time that I've ever had a teacher tell me, "I am proud of you for not studying for my test." And honestly, I just really needed to hear that because after she said that to me, I looked at myself, I stopped trying to study the morning of the exam, and I went to [restaurant name]. And I just hung out with some of my friends from choir who had finished their AP Bio exam. We hung out at [restaurant name]. I went back, I took the exam. And guess what? I was completely fine, I did not need to study any more for that. I…
Our team talked with community members of all ages at the STEAM Expo Day on April 5th, 2025, as part of the MSU Science Festival. We invited visitors to participate in two dialect games and consider the ways sociolinguistics connects to their lives! It was a long day for us, but "the amount of people that enjoyed hearing about linguistics is more than worth it," says team member Lin Cabada. Do you call soft drinks pop or soda? We used this question as an attention grabber. Julia Bolash, another team member, says many people "had stories to tell about pop versus soda debates from their own lives!" We asked visitors to record the word they use with a color-coded sticker on our chart. Annan Kirk, an MI Diaries team member, showing our Pop/Soda chart to attendees. Team member Hamlin Teng helping a visitor add a sticker to the chart later in the day. Red sticker: pop Blue sticker: soda Yellow/green sticker: other (such as Coke, sodapop, fizzy drink) Each participant placed their sticker above the year they were born, so we could compare the words across generations. As the day went on, our chart filled up and we could show Science Festival visitors a clear pattern: soda is becoming more common in younger generations! What do you call the body part at the end of your arm? What do you call something you can wear on your head? In our second dialect game, we prompted participants to say the words hand and hat and listened closely to their pronunciation of the vowel sounds in the two words. Team member Xhanna Travina with our Hand/Hat chart towards the start of the day. Team member Jess Shepherd talking to visitors about the Hand/Hat game. Yellow sticker: the two vowel sounds were pronounced the same way Green sticker: the vowels were pronounced differently. Red sticker: the vowels sounded different, but not in a typical Michigan way! Science Festival attendees helped us reveal a trend: younger Michiganders are much more likely to pronounce hand and hat differently than people from older generations! "People were often genuinely amazed to learn that there were two pronunciations of the same vowel. By the afternoon, the trend in apparent time was really clear," says MI Diaries co-lead Dr. Suzanne Wagner, "so visitors got a great sense of how sociolinguistic inquiry magically uncovers phenomena that they hadn’t noticed before."…
So, I was getting back from school and my mom said we can go to McDonald's. So we went and we had to go anyways because she wanted Diet Coke. So we went, and I wanted a, what's it called again? McChicken. McChicken. Oh, thanks. A McChicken, and so I got one. I think I got two, actually. No, it was one. And I started eating it. The first bite it hurt my tooth, the second it hurt really bad, the third I took another bite. Well, I tried to. I felt something pointy, so I took my mouth off of it and looked, and it was my tooth. It was gone. And I think I screamed and said -- screamed, "Mom," and said that I lost my tooth and then I think my mom said, "Okay, great, put it, um, somewhere where it won't get lost, or like, fall out, and where it's safe." The end.
So, one of the end of the school activities was also like wrapping up all of the clubs I lead. Or not wrapping it up, but like, passing down, um, leadership and then just making sure that the person after me knows what they're doing and what they're supposed to do, so, um, one of which was anime club. So, we had this like -- something we've done every year is something we call the knighting ceremony. We literally have like -- previously, like the previous leader used like a meter stick, since we use the physics classroom for it, the anime club, right? So then he takes a meter stick and used it as the knighting, like -- the sword for the knighting ceremony, which is funny. This time I brought in a retractable sword, so it's not a real one, obviously, to school and then we did that. Basically, we just quote unquote "knighted" the, um, uh, what's it called? The next board members and next, president of our club. And then, um, the other -- so, the other senior who's graduating in the club helped make brownies and then, yeah, we had brownies and just watched some anime as usual.
And so, my dad bought 19 little feeder pigs, and, uh -- but before we got them, we had to dig a trench all around the area they were going to be kept in, and you have to bury the bottom of the woven wire fence like a foot down, because pigs dig. And you can't keep a pig in if you just have a fence that's, uh, touching the ground or a little bit above the ground, like you can a cow. And so we had the laborious task of burying all this fence and stringing fence and putting fence posts, and just the whole deal. And so then we got these 19 little feeder pigs. And my dad had built a shelter for 'em out of pl- plywood. And so, I remember one day in particular, that the neighbor had come over to see the pigs, because that's what farmers do is they go and look at other peo- -- each other's stock. And this neighbor had come over to look at the pigs, and the pigs were all sleeping in this shelter. And somebody barked. You know, pigs will do a bark that is a warning bark. And that shed exploded. Little pigs went every direction, and they blew off the sides and the roof, and everything, and we're all just standing there. It was me and my dad and our neighbor, we're all just standing there looking at this, not saying anything, and it's like, "Holy smokes!" They just exploded that building for no reason in particular, they all ran around and then just went about their business, it was nothing to be scared of. So anyway, we had these pigs, and we fed these pigs, and we -- I remember my sister was home from nurse's training and she had mono and she was sleeping a lot. And one day, everybody was gone except her and me. She was sleeping in the house and I went out, and darn it if those little pigs hadn't figured out how to get out. There was three of them. They were like escape artists, and they -- these pigs had gotten out and they were making furrows in the yard. I don't know if you know anything about pigs, but they look for grubs and stuff by digging with their snouts, and their snouts are like a plow…