13 Things Michiganders Say That Confuse Everyone From Out of State

You can grow up in Michigan, move away, and discover that a word you’ve used your whole life needs an explanation.

The first blank stare feels like the other person’s problem.

By the third one, you start wondering what else you’ve been saying that only makes sense back home.

These are the things Michiganders say that confuse everyone from out of state.

1. Doorwall

Locals call the big sliding glass door that opens onto a back deck a “doorwall.”

Elsewhere, it’s a patio door.

A North Carolina listener called the public radio show A Way with Words after a Detroit-area friend texted about hanging curtains around her doorwall.

The listener pictured a curtain strung between two rooms.

A Detroit native shared a similar story after she moved to Seattle.

People there met the word with blank stares until she stopped using it.

According to the show’s hosts, home designers promoted doorwalls in the early 1950s, in places as far off as Charlotte, North Carolina.

The name only stuck in the Detroit area.

2. Party Store

A party store is the corner shop where you grab a six-pack, a bag of chips and a gallon of milk.

Balloons aren’t on the list.

Out-of-staters hear the name and picture a party supply store stacked with paper plates and streamers.

Detroit’s alt-weekly Metro Times has recounted newcomers assuming the name means a store stocked with balloons and decorations.

In Michigan, the term is official enough that the state’s Liquor Control Commission lists party stores among the businesses licensed to sell packaged spirits.

Convenience stores and grocery stores share that same list.

So when a friend offers to swing by the party store, expect them to come back with ice and beer.

3. Pasty

“Pasty” rhymes with “nasty,” not “tasty.”

Rhyme it with “tasty,” and you’ve named something a burlesque dancer wears.

NPR reports that mispronouncing it that way has left Upper Peninsula shop customers wondering what was on the menu.

It’s lunch, not a costume.

A pasty is a folded crust packed with meat and diced potatoes, often with rutabaga or carrots.

Cornish miners brought the recipe to the Upper Peninsula during the copper boom of the 1800s.

Finnish immigrants who followed took it up as well.

The sturdy pie made a good lunch for 12-hour shifts underground.

4. Michigan Left

A “Michigan left” is how drivers turn left on a busy divided road without turning left at the intersection.

Hear the phrase with no context, and nothing about the words hints at the loop-around it means.

Drivers go straight or turn right first, then loop back through a U-turn lane in the median.

Newcomers don’t see it coming.

Detroit TV station WDIV notes the setup can cause brief confusion for unfamiliar drivers.

The station says the first one reportedly went in at Eight Mile and Livernois in the early 1960s.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) says Michigan lefts can cut crashes and fatalities by 30% to 60%.

That’s a fair trade for a few extra seconds behind the wheel.

5. Michigander

Residents can’t agree on what to call themselves.

A newcomer usually has no idea two different names are even in play, let alone which one lands better in which room.

“Michigander” is the popular pick, but “Michiganian” still has loyal fans.

The Detroit News started its Michiganian of the Year honors in 1978.

Over at the Detroit Free Press, editors settled on “Michiganders” after a reader survey in the mid-1980s.

Governors have split, too.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Gov. Rick Snyder have favored “Michigander,” while the three governors before Snyder used “Michiganian.”

Accounts say Abraham Lincoln needled Michigan’s Lewis Cass with that name in 1848, casting him as a goose-like follower.

Dictionary.com has published an explainer on the question.

A newcomer who guesses wrong can land on either side of a long-running argument.

6. Yooper

Anyone from the Upper Peninsula is a Yooper.

Say it to an out-of-stater, and blank stares are the usual response, since nothing in the word hints at its meaning.

Say “U.P.” out loud a few times, and the spelling starts to make sense.

Merriam-Webster traces the word to that pronunciation and dates its first known use to 1975.

Dictionary editors there initially passed on it as too regional, according to the Upper Peninsula man who lobbied to get it in.

He didn’t give up.

7. The Bar

Locals say they’re going to the bar, where many Americans would name the place or say “a bar.”

Which one?

Hear someone say they’re heading to the bar, and it can sound like everyone already agreed on the answer.

Linguist Anne Curzan told Michigan Public that the extra “the” surprised her more than anything else after she moved to the state.

She had expected people to say which bar they meant.

8. Bag

Locals pronounce “bag” with a stretched, nasal vowel that can come out sounding closer to a different word altogether.

Linguists call the pattern the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, and it stretches across Michigan and the rest of the Great Lakes region.

Michigan Public has pointed to “bag” as one example of the shift.

Someone asking for a bag of chips can draw an odd look.

The vowel is the problem.

9. The Soo

Locals shorten Sault Ste.

Marie to “the Soo,” and the full name follows the same sound: Soo Saint Marie.

It’s never “Salt.”

Reader’s Digest named Sault Ste.

Marie as Michigan’s entry on its list of the most difficult-to-pronounce towns in each state.

The magazine’s advice is to leave the “salt” sound out of it.

The city’s convention and visitors bureau says “Sault” translates to a jump, a nod to the rapids on the St. Marys River.

The bureau says French missionary Jacques Marquette gave the settlement its name in 1668.

10. Mackinac

Residents pronounce the Mackinac in Mackinac Island exactly like the Mackinaw in Mackinaw City: Mack-in-aw.

Visitors stumble anyway.

Mackinac Island’s tourism bureau says visitors often ask whether it’s Mack-i-naw or Mack-i-nack, with a hard c at the end.

Blame the French.

The bureau traces the name to Michilimackinac, an Anishinaabe word that French settlers adapted with a final “c” pronounced like “aw.”

The British later shortened it to Mackinac.

Mackinaw City, established on the mainland in the 1850s, got a spelling that matches the sound.

11. Boston Cooler

People call a milkshake of vanilla ice cream and Vernors ginger ale a Boston Cooler, and, confusingly, it’s a Detroit classic with no known tie to the city of Boston.

Vernors has been Detroit’s ginger ale since pharmacist James Vernor created the recipe in 1866.

Where the name “Boston” came from is still disputed.

One theory points to Detroit’s Boston Boulevard, near James Vernor’s original soda fountain, though the story has skeptics.

A first-time visitor who orders one will likely ask why a Detroit drink carries a Massachusetts city’s name.

12. Devil’s Night

Locals have a name for October 30: Devil’s Night.

Many Americans don’t.

In survey data linguist Gretchen McCulloch examined for Slate, about 74% of respondents had no special name for the night before Halloween.

Devil’s Night was popular in Michigan, while “Mischief Night” clustered in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

To a transplant from Texas, the name can sound far more sinister than the night before trick-or-treating.

In 2026, Devil’s Night falls on a Friday.

13. Up North

People talk about Up North as if everyone, even out-of-staters, knows the exact spot.

Opinions vary.

Traverse City, Petoskey, Cheboygan and Alpena sit inside it by nearly anyone's measure.

The starting line is where the arguments begin.

White Cloud, northeast of Muskegon, bills itself on signs as the place where the North begins.

Others hold out for the Mackinac Bridge and the Upper Peninsula beyond it.