How to speak Chicago

Everywhere I go, whether it’s Austin Texas, Atlanta Georgia, or Fire Island XIV on Planet Hacknor, I get people who talk to me about where I live.

Any time I tell someone that I live in the Windy City, their first reaction is to say “Chicago! Bang Bang!” or to ask me about Al Capone. Yes, evidently Chicago is still overrun by early 20th Century bootleggers.

Eventually, we get past that and maybe we talk about other things in Chicago. Yes, the Cubs are still bad, but the White Sox are now good. No, I’ve never met Michael Jordan personally. Yes, the pizza and the hot dogs are that good.

Sometimes, my new friends want to learn how to speak like a real Chicagoan, and sometimes, if they’re lucky, I’ll show them how.

Today is your lucky day.

There are two basic guidelines to follow when attempting to speak Chicago:

1. Get a hook.

2. Lazy Th’s.

I'll start with the lazy Th’s first. We use D’s in place of Th’s almost all the time. Da Bears, da Bulls, dat guy over dere, dis guy’s da guy. I know in New York, they do that with the Th’s as well, but when we do it, it sounds charming and colloquial. Incidentally, yelling “Da Bears!” and “Da Bulls!” is played out. Very played out.

Now for your hook, it has to be something that you can easily use to get you into the accent. This is mine: hot dogs and sausage. Say it like this: hat dahgs and sahsatch. Don’t go too heavy on the pronunciation, just have it hang somewhere between the proper Midwest sound and the way it’s spelled above.

Those are the basics; of course, there’s a big difference between certain areas of Chicagoland. Citizens of the South Side generally have the thickest accent, with the S at the end of words sounding like S, not Z, and it gets less noticeable as you go North. So you start down by 95th and Western with “Da beerss, da bratss and da Bearss,” and as you get into Winetka, it sounds more like “The sherry, the brie, at the Ravinia.”

Dere you go, dat was your lesson in how to speak Chicago. I think dat with a little practice, you’ll be good at and enjoy speaking like dis. Go ahead, give it a try.