Julia A. Moore was a remarkable nineteenth-century poet who penned poems of praise for western Michigan. Here’s the concluding stanza of her effusion on “Grand Rapids.”
When 
Campau came to the valley
No bridge was across the river;
Indians in their light canoes
Rowed them o’er the water.
Railroads now from every way
Run through the city, Grand Rapids;
The largest town in west Michigan
Is the city of Grand Rapids.
Moore was an eccentric poet but she continues to give delight.
Michiganders do two things to “Grand Rapids” that make it distinctive. One is to link the d to the r so the syllable break produces “Gran Drapids.” A resident of East Grand Rapids, a friend of mine, always used to shorten that down to “Drapids.”
Alternatively, the d may just disappear, (Gran Rapids) as it always does in Coldwater (“Colwater”).
The second thing changes the consonants in “Rapids.” As with other words, Michiganders tend to produce a voiced sound when the voiceless sound comes between vowels in the middles of words: habby for happy in “Happy Birthday”; budder for butter; and sagger for sacker. Hence “Rabids.”
A more general sound change (and not exclusive to Michigan) is to turn voiced final consonants into voiceless ones. Thus, lots of Michiganders (especially young ones) pronounce the consonants in bet and bed the same: bet. You can easily test this out by making those two words plural: bets and beds. If there is a z sound, the final consonants is voiced; if there is an s sound, the final consonant is voiceless. This process gives us the t in “Grand Rapits.”
A local Grand Rapids joke is to talk about the place as “the Rabbits,” and not so long ago there was an art contest putting a lot of tall rabbits downtown, painted or otherwise.
Do you hear any of these pronunciations? Let us know in the Comments section below.
Julia Ward - 1987
Habby for happy? Never heard that, but I have heard exhilarator for accelerator. I’m a lifelong Michigander and I’ve always pronounced Grand Rapids as it’s written.
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Nancy Barnes - 1972
I moved from Michigan in 1980 and began noticing Michigander accents in the media ( homesick ). I heard it in Madonna and comedian Sara Bernhardt (sp) but I think it may be more metro-Detroit, than Michigan in general.
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Jane Sullivan - 1987
As a life-long Michigan resident,(Ann Arbor) I’ve never believed that there was a Michigan accent. That is, until seeing the examples in these columns, and saying the words out loud. Then I think, yah, I totally say it that way! Thanks for helping me notice the peculiarities of Michigan speech. I find it fascinating.
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Kevin Hawkins
It seems to me that “budder” for butter isn’t fair. Most every North American and Australian produces an aveolar flap here!
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Kathy DeRonne - 1964
I’m a lifelong Michigander and use none of those, what I consider to be, “lazy” shortcuts. Where I hear them is among my tenants in Detroit speaking in what I call “black English.” They don’t enunciate and the voiced consonants sound like nasal congestion (habby for happy.) It irritates me because it sounds uneducated and lazy, but it might be just the extension of a drawl. My late husband used to “catch” it from them and converse with them in the same way, but never with anyone else.
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Connie Boyd - 1967
Having been born in Utah but raised in Michigan, I always thought Michigan was mid-west mellow with little or no accent. I moved back to Michigan recently after spending twenty years in Massachusetts where my ear must have been fine tuned to the variety of accents there – believe me a Worcester accent varies greatly from a Southie accent as much as a Southie from a basic Bostonian. I was shocked by the distinctive accent I am hearing even up-North in the Traverse City area. Thanks for articulating and dissecting what I am noticing.
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Betsy Noren - 1974, 1982
Another thing I am told is unique to Michigan is adding an “s” such as going to Krogers. One “lazy” pronunciation that drives me crazy is Lake Urine or Port Urine!
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Susan Kirschner - 1977
I listen to Michigan Public Radio and I’ve been noticing the disappearance of consonants. If too many occur without vowels separating them, the speaker just omits one or more. For example, today I heard a newscaster speaking about the “Repuhlican” party and, later, about “parnerships”.
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Judy Brainard - 1960
Having lived more than half of my life away from Michigan, although born there, I notice the “Great Lakes” accent. As a long time Pittsburgh resident, the Michigan accent is less pronounced than Pittsburghese. My husband used to tease my brother for saying “pitchers” rather than pictures. My brother was Ohio born but spent most of his life in Michigan.
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Christine McKnight - 1969 (LS&A)
I grew up in Ionia, one hour east of Grand Rapids. My next-door neighbor referred to our big-city neighbor as “Gran Apids.”
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bob wells - 1973
What about zinc for sink? Most of them are either stainless or porcelain.
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Kevin Kacan - 2015
This website has a lot of funny words many of us Michiganders never realize >> http://www.michigannative.com/ma_pronunciations.shtml
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James Mercier - 2003
There’s no such thing as “not having an accent.” Everyone has one. It’s a matter of perspective. Try telling a British person that you, an American Midwesterner, don’t have an accent!
Regarding the examples above, I definitely say “budder,” and I suppose I might say “habby” in the middle of a long sentence (though I don’t think I would if I were to begin a sentence with it), but I can’t imagine myself saying “sagger” for sacker.
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Robt & Sara Miller - 1951, 1954, & 1959
We think that Midwesterners speak the best English in America. They enunciate and do not speak so fast as on the east coast, or slowly as in the South. We have lived in New Jersey since 1959. We are proud to have been raised in Michigan!
We lived in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1990s. We were told that not only was our German very distinct, but our English was more clearly spoken than that of most of our compatriots.
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Jane Sullivan - 1987
Why do I shudder when I hear words like “lazy” associated with the speech of others, especially when “others” represent a specific minority group. Can’t a discussion of everyday speech focus on what is interesting, instead what is perceived of as either right or wrong? Check your judgement people, and we’ll all get along a lot better.
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Darlene Braunschneider - 1954 & 92
My husband is a graduate of U of M law school and has told the following story to his children and grandchildren for years. They think he is hilarious,and I guess he isn\’t far oo the mark. \”When the earliest settlers arrived on the banks of the large river where they thought it would be a good place to settle, they found several huge rabbits carved from stone along the shore and they named the spot \’Granite Rabbits\’.
Over the years, because of the influence of the German and Polish it morphed into Grand Rapids.\” We even considered having some big rabbits cast out of cement and entering them in ArtPrize.
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Bee Hale
I never really realized it before this article that that I DO pronouce it like “Rabids” thanks for the story!
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Rex Miller - 1981
We thought it was hilarious as children when Grandpa would, on a road trip up north, call it (jokingly) “Big Rabbits.” And on the subject of accents, after living in W. Michigan all my life, we moved to Indianapolis recently where I have been asked several times if I was Canadian.
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Dave Burhenn - 1975, JD 1982
Having spent half of my life in Southern California, I must say that there definitely IS a Michigan accent. My hometown, Gran Rapids (the “d” is indeed optional), was never pronounced “Grand Rabbits” when I lived there. Must be those Detroit folks who migrated over and insist on taking spaces in our “parking ramps” and shopping at “Meijers.” But as another poster suggested, nothing is as distinctive as Pittsburghese. I will never forget, as a kid, having one of my Pennsylvania cousins ask me, “Dive, do you wanna go dahntahn in the core?” I will leave it to others to translate that into Midwestern.
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