My friends have told me I don’t 
seem like I’m from Michigan. I was 
born and raised in a quiet town 
on Lake Michigan and both of my 
parents are natives of the western 
side of the state. I’m not sure what 
it even means to “seem like” I’m 
from Michigan, but there are a few 
things about me that are distinctly 
Midwestern. 
The most obvious tell is how I 
say certain words. Bagel is baahg-el 
not bay-gul. Milk is melk. Bag, like 
bagel, also gets an eh sound inserted 
into it. 
My boyfriend, who is from New 
York, takes particular issue with 
how I say bagel. Over and over he’ll 
instruct me to say “bay-gul, like 
the water feature and the bird.” I’ll 
entertain him and try to pronounce 
bagel “correctly,” but the truth is, 
I can’t even hear the difference 
between baahg-el and bay-gul. 
Linguists 
sometimes 
call 

Midwestern 
accents, 
formally 
known as the Inland North accent, 
“general English” or the “neutral 
English” accent. But this notion 
is increasingly untrue. Since the 
1950s, the Great Lakes Region of 
the Midwest has been experiencing 
what linguists have dubbed the 
“Northern 
Cities 
vowel 
shift,” 
giving rise to a new and distinct 
Midwestern 
accent. 
Before, 
it 
would’ve been difficult to hear 
someone speak and immediately 
identify 
that 
they 
were 
from 
Michigan or Wisconsin or Indiana. 
But now, depending on the speaker, 
it can be quite obvious. If current 
trends continue, Midwest accents 
may no longer be the desired 
“neutral English.” 
This isn’t the first time English 
speakers 
have 
shifted 
their 
pronunciation of vowels: between 
1400 and 1700, the English language 
underwent what’s known as The 
Great Vowel Shift, a linguistic event 
that radically altered the way words 
were pronounced. 
The most distinct characteristic 

of the Northern Cities vowel shift 
is the lengthening and lifting of 
certain sounds: the short A sound 
turns into a vaguely Canadian ah. 
Speakers with particularly strong 
Midwest accents will pronounce 
job like jab, for example. Californian 
and Canadian accents are also both 
the result of vowel shifts. In the 
California vowel shift, ‘u’ is moving 
towards a ‘y’ or ‘e’ sound, so that 
rude begins to sound like reed. 
Canadian accents are also the result 
of lengthening and the eh and ah 
sounds becoming more prominent 
in speakers’ pronunciation. This is 
why Canadian accents sound very 
similar to the “Yooper Accent” found 
in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 
But the Midwest accent may 
prove to be short-lived. Regional 
dialects as a whole are declining, 
demonstrative of a larger, inherently 
problematic, 
aim 
towards 
a 
“neutral’’ accent. In 1980, 80% of 
Texans had a Southern accent. In 
2013, that number had declined to 
just one-third of Texas’ population. 
In cities across the country known 

for their distinctive accents — 
Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, 
among others — local varieties of 
English are fading in favor of generic 
“newscaster” accents, a voice that 
exists without a sense of place or 
time, that could be spoken by any 

American, anywhere. 
The Midwest accent has emerged 
at an unlikely time, where regional 
accents are fading and linguistic 
heterogeneity 
threatens 
the 
development of new ones. What 
does it mean for the Midwest accent 

to lose its status as the “standard” 
American accent? And what do the 
speaker’s regional flourishes — or 
lack thereof — actually tell us about 
them? 

S T A T E M E N T

guff. noun. Trivial or foolish talk or 
ideas. Synonyms include: nonsense, 
humbug, malarky. /g f/

“Tyra, having sat through hours 
of Zoom meetings, was completely 
disinterested in the guff coming 
out of Martin’s mouth.”
If you look in any official 
English dictionary and search the 
word “guff,” the above noun will 
appear with its condescending 
connotations and old-timey air. It’s 
not the most common word of the 
present day; I know I haven’t once 
in my entire life heard it used in this 
sense. But there it stands, asserting 
its seal of approval in all its official 
glory. Now, I don’t know where the 
general public stands on respecting 
the authority of published, mostly 
printed dictionaries, but I tend 
to take the royal lexicon of the 
English language as more of a 
suggestion. To me, the word “guff” 
is no exception. 
For decades, this term has 
meant 
something 
much 
more 
meaningful to the students of 
Ann Arbor living in Cooperative 
Housing across campus. At some 
point between the establishment of 
the first housing co-op in 1932 and 
present day, “guff” was adopted by 
co-op housing and turned into an 
acronym. Then, as language tends 
to, it continued morphing to adopt 
new uses and meanings. First, an 
adjective, sometimes a verb and 
always a shorthand for the core 
philosophy a co-oper learns to 
adapt as they live in a community 
founded to uplift. 
Ann Arbor is unique when it 
comes to student housing co-ops, 
which 
the 
Inter-Cooperative 
Council defines on its website as 
“organizations 
and 
businesses 
that are owned and operated 
collectively, for the mutual benefit 
of their members.” There are 16 
individual housing co-ops under 
the ICC, an entirely student-
founded and student-run non-
profit organization, making it 
one of the largest student housing 
co-ops in the United States. 
But I had no idea about any of 
this history when I first moved 
into a co-op during my second ever 
semester of college. The year was 
2020, and I had just spent a handful 
of months getting accustomed 
to living alone in a dorm built for 
two and finally mustering up the 
courage to talk to my neighbors. 
In November of the same year, 
the University sent out an email 
informing all undergraduates that 
their dorm contracts had been 
promptly canceled, and that if we 
wanted to continue staying on 
campus, we had to figure out what 
the hell to do about it — on our own. 
It was exactly the type of situation 
I did not want to be navigating as 
a teenage quasi-adult. I heard a 
handful of my hall mates talking 
about moving to a building called 
Escher co-op. I had no idea where 
it was located or what a co-op 
was, but these hall mates were 
the only people around me I had 
grown semi-familiar with. I didn’t 

know them very well, but I knew I 
wanted to get to know them better. 
So I decided to follow suit in taking 
the opportunity to get out of the 
dorms. 
Nestled in a secluded corner of an 
already woodsy and isolated North 
Campus, right on the outskirts of 
the Baits-Bursley conglomerate, 
rests a building in the shape of a 
misshapen horseshoe: M.C. Escher 
Cooperative House. It wears trees 
like the sleeves of a turtleneck as it 
hugs a grassy hill with a campfire 
and picnic table. Once you walk up 
this small hill to get to the center 
of Escher’s courtyard, you’ll be 
surrounded by nine evenly spaced 
doors with their own individual 
mailboxes and set of stairs. Oh, and 
one other thing: Each entrance has 
its own elaborate mural, inspired 
by a uniquely given name, spanning 
the entire door. From left to right 
proudly stand the passages to 
Trantor Mir, Walden, Sinclair, Bag 
End (yes, this is after “The Lord 
of the Rings”), Zapata, Valhalla, 
Russell, Karma and Falstaff, like 
knights at the round table. Over 
the river and through the woods, to 
Escher house we go. 
When I first arrived with my 
moving van of luggage to unload, 
I was greeted by Escher’s house 
president. 
His 
demeanor 
was 
immediately friendly, if a bit 
awkward. He sent his personal 
phone number out to contact when 
arriving to move in. There was no 
fanfare of a front desk or a check-
in process, like when moving into 
Bursley. He just showed me to my 
room, helped me move my stuff, 
remembered he had a key to give 
me, and my co-op journey began.
All new members are given a 
comprehensive tour of Escher’s 
three floors and I quickly learned 
that the quirks of the building 
extended beyond the paintings 
on its doors. Here’s the general 
layout: The aforementioned nine 
doors belong to nine sections that 
an Escher co-oper can choose to 
move into. For example, I moved 
into a large single on the first floor 
of Walden, named after the book 
by Henry David Thoreau. Each 
section then has two floors of 
rooms and two common spaces, a 
lounge room on the upper floor and 
a kitchen on the lower floor. Every 
lounge room and kitchen come 
with their own unique appliances: 
Russell kitchen has a toaster oven 
and a wall of origami cranes, while 
Trantor Mir lounge has Settlers of 
Catan and a Nintendo Wii. 
Escher’s basement contains an 
even greater assortment of common 
spaces. There’s a large living room 
with couches, a projector, a pool 
table, two pianos, a functioning 
stripper pole and multicolored 
scribblings of general nonsense all 
over the walls. There’s also a music 
room with three more pianos of 
varying quality, three-fifths of 
a drum set, a handful of guitar 
amps, some microphones, and a 
ukulele. The biggest and probably 
most important room in Escher 
is the massive industrial kitchen 
connected to a bona fide cafeteria, 
affectionately named “O’Keeffe,” 
after the painter. Escher technically 
has two cafeterias for house 
dinners, O’Keeffe and Renaissance, 

but Renaissance was put out of 
commission 
during 
COVID-19 
while I lived there. 
It’s in the O’Keeffe cafeteria that 
I first learned this term:

G.U.F.F. 
acronym. 
Generally 
Unrestricted Free Food.
I was standing in a group with 
the rest of the new members, 
masks and eyebrow raise of mild 
disbelief on all our faces, as the 
president of Escher spoke in a clear 
and practiced way about how we 
would be feeding ourselves. The 
three fridges and pantry are kept 
stocked with G.U.F.F. items like 
eggs, bagels, apples, sandwich 
bread, Eggo waffles, dairy and 
non-dairy milk, flour, cucumbers, 
cereal and many other basic food 
items that can be used for making 
meals. A portion of everyone’s 
rent goes toward the budget for 
stocking G.U.F.F. foods for every 
member. My favorites soon became 
the variety of G.U.F.F. coffee beans 
and the two barrels of G.U.F.F. ice 
cream diligently kept in the freezer.
I grew to realize during the 
first few weeks at Escher that I 
hadn’t just moved into a building 
on the grounds of my university, I 
had moved into a culture. A co-op, 
I came to learn, is a microcosm 
of democracy on campus, where 
policies are proposed and voted 
on every month, and members are 
elected to be in charge of planning 
events and taking minutes at 
meetings. It’s also a community 
where every member is meant to 
chip in, an attitude that’s embedded 
in the house culture and the system 
of the co-op itself. Within the first 
two weeks I lived at Escher, I was 
assigned three distinct chores: I 
had to clean the bathroom in my 
hallway once a week, vacuum the 
floors of Walden twice a week, 
and help the chef make dinner on 
Mondays. Oh yeah, Escher pays 
a private chef to cook dinner for 
the whole house every weekday. 
I think what I miss most about 
Escher is the G.U.F.F. espresso. 
The machine they have down in 
O’Keeffe is top notch: A one stop 
shop for grinding coffee beans 
fresh, brewing one or two shots in 
your mug and stemming milk for 
the latte of your dreams. I made a 
cafe miel every day I lived there. 
I only stayed in Escher for 
one semester, but in following 
some of the same friends that 
first brought me to the co-ops, 
I moved right to Michminnies 
co-op for my whole sophomore 
year. Located in Kerrytown and 
featuring a facade of bright blue 
and purple, Michminnies was an 
entirely different experience from 
the quiet often found at Escher. 
Living in Escher felt like being at 
summer camp. Michminnies felt 
like the Airbnb Ms. Frizzle would 
start running when she inevitably 
got 
bored 
after 
retirement. 
Michminies is the hoarder house of 
the oldest lesbian you know, whose 
only possessions come from yard 
sales and art fairs. Michminnies 
has the alternative, truly eccentric 
atmosphere that college town 
coffee shops try to go for but are 
scared to fully commit to because 
they don’t want to lose commercial 
value. Michminnies is the house 

that the Property Brothers would 
design 
if 
their 
only 
creative 
direction was the Pinterest board of 
a stoned Beatles enthusiast and the 
word “maximalism.” Michminnies 
has the walls your parents kept 
you from painting when you were 
old enough to start having agency 
over your room but too young 
to put practicality over creative 
expression. It has more nooks than 
an Animal Crossing game and more 
crannies than a Crayola box. And I 
say all this with utmost pride and 
affection. There is nowhere else 
like it, besides maybe other co-ops. 
I arrived at Michminnies the 
same way I arrived at Escher, 
with boxes of stuff to unload and 
no idea what I was getting myself 
into. Living at Michminnies made 
me realize Escher is the odd one 
out when it comes to Ann Arbor 
student co-ops. Rather than being 
a large building made to house over 
100 people, the average co-op is 
just a regular-looking house with 
space for around 25, give or take. 
Escher is also the only co-op on 
North Campus, and the only co-op 
with a hired chef to cook for so 
many people. Being in charge of 
making dinner is one of the chores 
at Michminnies and all other 
co-ops. The democracy remains 
the same in every co-op, but the 
policies 
and 
elected 
officials 
between can be as unique as the 
co-ops themselves. Michminnies 
has two presidents, three “Flight 
Attendants” (in charge of planning 
house 
events), 
an 
“Ordering 
Steward” (in charge of placing the 
food order), two “Maintenance 
Managers” (in charge of house 
upkeep), two “Work Managers” (in 
charge of delegating chores), two 
“Groundskeepers” (shovel snow in 
winter, take care of gardens in front 
of house, etc), two “Sin Stewards” 
(curate house alcohol) and more. 
Even Michminnies is different 
from most co-ops because it’s two 
houses in one, which is why many 
of the standard co-op positions are 
doubled. At Michminnes, I started 
to see the evolution of G.U.F.F. into 
more than just food:
guff. adjective. Denoting any food 
item, article of clothing, kitchen 
utensil, furniture item or object 
for giving away that ownership is 
relinquished on a first come first 
serve basis. Synonyms include: 
communal, free, up-for-grabs. /gǝf/
“Sarah was incredibly happy 
to come home to a plate of guff 
cookies.”
“Dalton asked if the stickers on 
the table were guff.”
“After not having worn it for 
months, Emily threw her sweater 
in the guff closet for others to take.”
With 
the 
introduction 
of 
more than just guff food came 
subsections of how things were 
shared, and to what degree they 
were shared:

partial-guff. adjective. Denoting 
any food item, article of clothing, 
kitchen utensil, furniture item or 
object that the owner is willing 
to share but not indiscriminately. 
Usually used in reference to 
inorganic appliances, like a gaming 
computer or a coffee machine. 

DANI CANAN
Statement Correspondent 

Guff etymology

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Wednesday, February 22, 2023— 5
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Say eh: Deconstructing the Midwestern accent

Design by Grace Filbin 

HALEY JOHNSON
Statement Correspondent 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

e

From top to bottom: Esher House’s Waden Lounge, study room and music room.

Jeremy Weine/DAILY

Jeremy Weine/DAILY

Jeremy Weine/DAILY

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Jeremy Weine/DAILY

Jeremy Weine/DAILY

Jeremy Weine/DAILY

Mich house’s pantry, laundry room shelves and basement living room.

