The Word Minnesotans Now Struggle to Pronounce Most

You've likely seen it in grocery stores. Perhaps you ordered it at restaurants. Maybe you've even grown it in your own backyard. So why is this simple word still tripping up Minnesotans?

What Is Minnesota’s Most Mispronounced Word?

You’d think those of us who live here in Minnesota would have this one nailed down by now, but apparently not. A recent survey has revealed the surprisingly common herb many Minnesotans have a tough time correctly pronouncing.

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that many residents of the Land of 10,000 Lakes have trouble correctly pronouncing a few words. I mean, there are around 300,000 entries in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, while the Oxford English Dictionary says there are over half a billion words in our language today.

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And that's not counting the over 500 new words that are added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and dictionary.com each year. So it's not much of a shock that we'll all likely mispronounce a couple of words from time to time, right?

How the Survey Determined Mispronounced Words

But which word do we Minnesotans mispronounce the most? That's the question the crew over at Unscramblerer.com set out to answer. Their survey, taken between January 1st and October 27th, 2025, used search data from Google Trends to see which words tripped residents of each state the most.

We used Google Trends to discover the most mispronounced words. America's most mispronounced words can be discovered in Google Trends by searching for "How do you pronounce", "pronunciations of", and "How to pronounce".

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The Common Herb Minnesotans Mispronounce Most

Overall, the crew says they looked at 110 search variations of the top searches. And here in the North Star State, which word did we look up how to say the most this year? Why, that would be a common herb you might have used in the kitchen:

That's right, the aromatic herb from the mint family that's used for culinary, medicinal, and ornamental purposes is the word we mispronounce the most in Minnesota. And, so you don't have to look it up, the 'th' is silent, so thyme is pronounced as 'time.'

Behind the Cheddar Curtain over in my home state of Wisconsin, the Cheeseheads have a tough time pronouncing the word 'paczki.' (It's a traditional Polish pastry, like a donut, and can be pronounced as either 'PAWNCH-kee,' 'POONCH-kee,' or 'PAWNCH-kee,' the survey said.) Meanwhile, down in Iowa, they can't correctly pronounce the breed of dog known as a wiener dog-- the 'Dachshund.' (It's 'DOCKS-hund,' btw.)

Of course, we also have a variety of other local city and town names in the North Star State that are not only tough to pronounce, but also sound downright naughty... keep scrolling to check them out, as well!