It feels like forever since we debated what people from Michigan should call themselves. (Closer than a month.)
The answer, of course, is Michiganders. (Or Michiganians. Whatever.)
I mention this because, according to a new report, Michigan has the fifth most confusing nicknames for its residents out of all 49 states. (Or 50, if you insist on counting Ohio.)
The report comes from a QR code generator called qrfy. with which tracked Google searches like, “What do you call people from South Dakota and why on earth would you want to know?” (Statistically dubious.)
For verification, it relies on the extensive US Government Printing Manual, which decrees that we are citizens of Michigan and also that residents of the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau are Guineans. (Loved it.)
The most confusing state, he says, is Massachusetts. Given that the preferred term is “Massachusettsan” and the runners-up include “Massachusettsian”, yes, OK, I’ll buy it.
The Massachusetts state government, understandably tired of spelling Massachusetts, also authorizes “Bay Staters.” They could add “First-state-to-take-a-name-from-Native-Americans-in-the-same-way-they-robbed-the-homeowners”, but that’s probably too long for newspaper headlines or tweets.
Personally, I would choose the ones in Massachusetts. (I was not questioned.)
Free tapas at our southern neighbor
Words like Alabamian (15th on the list) and Arizonan (27th) are known as demonyms, from the Greek “demos” (common people or soldiers) and “onyma” (name). Onyma, incidentally, is also how the foot races begin in Alabama: “Onyamarks, get ready…”
Second on the survey list, behind Massachusetts, is Utah, followed by Connecticut and Illinois. Although the athletic teams at the universities of Utah and Illinois are the Utes and the Illini, the states’ demons are the much less creative Utahns and Illinoisans.
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For Connecticut, the term is Connecticuters, with alternatives including Connecticutian, Connecticuteer, and the even clumsier Connecticutensian. (Suggestion for Connecticutans: Move to Massachusetts.)
Even though we’re only fifth on the list, we’re probably #1 in hostility towards any demon you don’t prefer.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer and former Governor Rick Snyder, for the record, say Michigander, while the three governors before them said Michiganian. No one with the God-given sense of an Ohio person says “Michiganite,” but it’s out there, probably buried in Capital Park downtown with Stevens T. Mason.
Mason was just 24 years old when he took office as our state’s first elected governor in 1835. He oversaw the deal that gave Michigan the western two-thirds of the Upper Peninsula in exchange for greater Toledo, and which led to the official demon of Ohio in the eighth place, “Lower Michigan.”
North Dakota and naked cycling
The report that inspired all this nonsense determined that Michigan’s question is asked 1,441 times a month, compared to 2,073 for Massachusetts and all 40 for the least searched and most obvious result, “South Dakota.”
Hovering above South Dakota, for less confusion, from number 41 onwards, are Delawarean, Pennsylvanian, Virginian, South Carolinian, Rhode Islander, Mississippian, North Dakotan, Nebraskan, and West Virginian.
It’s not clear why North Dakota is more of a puzzle than South Dakota, or why Wyomingite – from a state with roughly the same population as Allen Park – is a step more confusing than number 12 on the list, Wisconsinite.
It’s also unclear how the compilers of the data know that online searchers were confused, which makes the entire list about as reliable as the Golden Globes.
Similar reports circulating in my inbox claim that Detroit has the fourth-worst inflation problem among large cities, that it is fifth among cities with the biggest credit score increases, that it is the second-worst city for renters, that the golf is the 10th most dangerous sport in the United States, that no Michigan city is in the top 10 or worst for naked cycling and that Olive Garden in Warren is second worst in customer satisfaction in the entire country.
The worst, according to reviews on Trip Advisor and Google, is in Beachwood, Ohio.
(That makes sense.)
In fact, Neal Rubin has nothing against Ohioans, or at least not much. He does, however, harbor long-standing grudges against certain rival high schools. Contact him at NARubin@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press: Report says Michigan has a confusing nickname — but it could be worse
