AILSA CHANG, HOST:
As Governor Tim Walz continues to hit the campaign trail, there is a certain phrase you may be hearing a lot - Minnesota nice. It's a term that's deeply familiar to residents of the state. On one hand, it's kind of a stereotype that's exactly what it sounds like, says Rachel Hutton, a culture reporter for the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis.
RACHEL HUTTON: People in Minnesota are literally nice, meaning they're kind. They're polite. They will help you push your car out of a snowbank if you get stuck in the winter.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
On the other hand, she says, Minnesotans have a habit of understatement and a certain way of, well, avoiding confrontation.
HUTTON: And instead of being direct in your communication, you tend to be passive-aggressive.
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COREY BONNEMA: 'Cause I have a relative that when we're - you know, it's been a hot summer day, and she's in the car with me, she'll just say, is it hot in here, versus making a request to you. Please turn on the air conditioning.
KELLY: That is Corey Bonnema in an interview last year with KARE 11 News in Minneapolis. Bonnema and Jerilyn Veldof wrote "Minnesota Nice?: A Transplant's Guide To Surviving And Thriving In Minnesota." Veldof says that passive aggressiveness gives Minnesota nice a double meaning.
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JERILYN VELDOF: The shadow side of Minnesota nice is called Minnesota ice.
CHANG: For outsiders, it can be hard to pick up that subtlety. Even if something doesn't quite sound like an insult, it can have a hidden meaning.
HUTTON: You're at a potluck, and, you know, somebody has you tried their hot dish as sort of the - you know, the Minnesota stereotype example.
CHANG: Rachel Hutton again.
HUTTON: And there's something a little funky about it. And you would tell them, oh, that's different. Or you'd say, oh, it's interesting. And you wouldn't - you know, meanwhile, you're kind of surreptitiously sort of scraping, you know, the remains of your hot dish into the garbage. But you wouldn't want to say, you know, no, I don't like it.
CHANG: Hutton says, Tim Walz is a master of the understated insult. At a rally earlier this week, Walz said this about Donald Trump and JD Vance.
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TIM WALZ: These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell. That's what you see.
HUTTON: Walz is going to use really harsh language that - in Minnesota speak, calling someone weird is - that's sort of going for the jugular. That's, like, a very harsh statement.
KELLY: Well, now that Walz has a national spotlight on him, we will be tracking more of that Minnesota nice and, yeah, Minnesota ice. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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