North Dakota Talk

Susan's dad, Roger, is moving some furniture out of his apartment into his garage and moving some other furniture into his apartment from his mom's apartment. I helped him this evening to lug some of the biggest stuff up and down the stairs from one second-floor apartment to the other second-floor apartment across town. We're now pooped and have resolved to move the rest of it another night--perhaps a less blustery and less frigid evening, as well.

Anyhoo, we noticed some peculiarities of ND old-timers' speech in the verbiage on signs posted around his mom's apartment building, and that reminded me of an example I heard recently that I remember having heard as a child, too: "A person should almost . . ." This precedes an action that the speaker is considering doing soon or feeling guilty about not yet having gotten around to doing, and it might be suitably replaced with "I should . . ." or "I had ought to . . ." It can also be used to suggest something that the listener ought to get off his/her lazy butt and do, equivalent to "You should . . ." or "People are starting to talk about why you haven't yet . . ." In the latter case, it's a gentle nudge without being too pushy; in the former, it's an acknowledgement without being too committal. Examples:

A neighbor crosses the street to visit, and the two of you stand on your driveway looking out over the too-tall grass in your own lawn: "A person should almost fire up the lawnmower and get out there pretty soon then. Dog's liable to get lost while doing his business."

You cross the street to visit your neighbor on his own unkempt lawn: "A person should almost take a day off work just to catch up with all the chores a fella's gotta do around the yard. Say, what kind of lawnmower you drivin' these days?"

You borrow the neighbor's lawnmower to mow your own lawn and afterwards have a cup of coffee with your wife: "A person should almost have his own lawnmower anymore, what with all the rain we've been getting and the way the prices have been droppin'. You seen the Sears flyer this week? Push mowers on sale for a hundred-fifty bucks."

Am I right, North Dakotans?!