"Do Utahns Talk Funny?"

Michael and I got a kick out of this little article we came across in the BYU Alumni Magazine tonight.  Michael grew up in Utah before he and his family moved to Boise, Idaho his senior year of high school.  I've noticed a few words that Michael pronounces "differently" and I have pointed out his "Utah accent" before.  But sometimes when we have friends over who are also Utah natives, they claim that Michael's pronunciations don't seem like a Utah accent to them.  So we thought maybe it was just him or something.  (It's not like it's really noticeable or anything, unless you live with him and hear him all the time).  But here's our proof -- he really can blame his "accent" on his Utah upbringing.  :)    

Michael switches words like "pill" and "peel," "hill" and "heal," "fill" and "feel."  So he pills and orange, and if he's sick he takes a peel, he walks up a heal, and eats the hill of the bread.  Mostly it's probably imperceptible to other people, but every once in a while one of his sentences will seem confusing to me, until I realize he's not using the word I think he is saying.  I never noticed it before, but while we were reading this article he pointed out that he also drops the "t" in words like "mountain."  

The interesting thing, though, is that lately I've heard the boys start to switch these same words (you'd think they might pick up my pronunciations instead of Michael's, since I'm home with them all day, but no).  The other day Lijah was talking about someone who was sick and asked if they were going to be hilled.