c.f. Garrison Keillor's Norwegian Bachelor Farmers

[cosmolinguist]

"The world's quietest room is in Minnesota," Andrew just told me. "That seems appropriate, somehow."

I had to laugh. Andrew still thinks my dad is so quiet he doesn't even say all the words in his sentences, and just expects the people around him to be used to him enough to fill them in.

(After he said this I paid extra attention the next time I was around my dad, and I'm sure he says all the words. But the fact that I found this plausible enough to have to check? Probably says a lot.)

Comments

I grew up on the East Coast

[jesse_the_k]

..So I'm just guessing. But if you speak up you may have to disagree with someone. Quiet is safer, yah?

Re: I grew up on the East Coast

[cosmolinguist]

I think that may well play a part in it. (It's hard to know for certain because I'm the furthest thing from this myself and of course you can't ask people like this why they're like this. :)

[mummimamma]

They don't even have to be bachelors, almost all male members of my family are like that.

I'm also amused that you've checked that your father actually says complete sentences. Not that I haven't done the same with some of my family members...

[cosmolinguist]

My family feels pretty removed from their Scandinavian origins a lot of the time, but I definitely found a lot to recognize when I read this entry of yours not long before I wrote this one. :)