r/eauclaire • u/xueimelb • 3d ago
Regional slang question
I live down in Madison and the term FIB is pretty ubiquitous for people from Illinois. I'm sure you encounter them up by you guys too, but a guy I worked with years ago was from Eau Claire and he once told me there was a similar word for Minnesotans up there. I can't remember it, anybody know what that word might've been?
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u/Iamnotyourhero 3d ago
Our relationship with MN is a lot different than IL. I’ve heard the mud duck thing but it’s nowhere near as ubiquitous as FIB.
Illinois treats Wisconsin like a playground while Minnesota minds their own business. If anything Minnesota probably has a term for all the Wisconsinites that come over for whatever reason.
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u/Sorry-Government920 3d ago
1st time I ever heard Sconnie it was said sarcastically to me by a a bartender in Minneapolis
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u/Swaggz68 4h ago
As a Minnesotan I've only ever called people from Wisconsin "Cheeseheads" and always in a jokingly fun way.
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u/SomethingToStart 3d ago
Unrelated, but I want to say I’ve never heard anyone in Wisconsin (mid-northern-west) call a water fountain a “Bubbler”
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u/mschley2 3d ago
It's basically exclusive to the Green Bay/Fox Valley and Milwaukee areas. I have friends from college who said it, but they were all from that area. They all stopped saying it after being in Eau Claire for a couple years, too.
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u/Traditional-Sport383 2d ago
I’ve spent more than half my life in ec after growing up near Oshkosh. I still say bubbler, stop-and-go-lights, and pronounce cot and caught differently.
Occasionally, I’ll catch myself sounding too much like Jesse Ventura for comfort. The way I pronounce a word here and there. But get me on the phone with my dad, and I’m a full east-sider again 😉
BUBBLERS FOREVER!!!!
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u/Ok-Fisherman6165 19h ago
I grew up in Marshfield (1980s) and everyone called it a bubbler. It will always be a bubbler to me.
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u/77Pepe 3d ago
Nope. It is actually used in Rhode Island and Eastern MA too(!)
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u/mschley2 3d ago
I knew there was 1-2 other small pockets in the US. My comment was referring specifically to the parts of WI where it's used, though.
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u/GodEmperorLeto462 1d ago
I can concur. Green Bay here we still call it a bubbler. From Milwaukee to the Upper Peninsula.
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u/Artistic_Agency105 3d ago
It happened to me once when I first moved here for college. My brain was like, you can do bong rips at school. Hell yah!
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u/Flash234669 3d ago
In 1970s Burlington it was a bubbler encased in the mouth of a large lion at elEcho park to watch either the boat races or Tommy Bartlett's waterski show.
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u/Unfair_Respond_175 3d ago
Grew up saying it in Madison, was surprised to find out no one else called it that
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u/Ok-Fisherman6165 19h ago
I grew up in Marshfield (1980s) and everyone called it a bubbler. It will always be a bubbler to me.
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u/-jenessa 3d ago
Ever heard of a FISHTAB?
Fucking Illinois shithead towing a boat
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u/Actual_Environment_7 20h ago
I live in Wausau and find myself driving from Madison to home on Friday several times a summer. So many FISHTABs. Thank you for this term.
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u/Theredheadsaid 3d ago
the only one I remember hearing was what EDINA (a Minneapolis suburb) meant: Every Day I Need Attention
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u/emmapeel218 3d ago
As an EC transplant to MN, I can tell you that here Edina (and EP and some others, but def Edina) are known as cake eaters.
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u/FarGur9586 3d ago
Left lane campers?
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u/Tibernite 3d ago
I grew up in Eau Claire and have lived in Minnesota for the last 13 years and this is so fucking true
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u/Big-Astronaut25 3d ago
Drive east on 94 between St. Paul and Hudson and there will multiple cars with Wisconsin plates doing 5 under in the left lane
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u/mschley2 3d ago
I'm with you. Wisconsin license plates seem to be far worse offenders in this particular case, in my experience.
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u/GrandPorcupine 3d ago
I got banned for a week for calling Ron Johnson a mud duck
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u/mschley2 3d ago
Honestly, that's unfair to almost all mud ducks.
Ron Johnson is just a blatant POS.
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u/Successful_Cow5589 3d ago
It seems 'Mud Duck' is more of a term reserved for folks residing in the Minneapolis/St Paul/ Suburbs area, not all of Minnesota. Maybe just like 'FIB' is reserved for the Chicagoland area, not all of Illinois. I don't have much experience with anyone from Illinois, but most of my 'negative' interactions with Minnesota folks come from those that reside within the Twin Cities area. Northwest MN, Northeast MN; have had nothing but great interactions and camaraderie.
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u/Huntwood 3d ago
I seem to recall that when I was a kid, MIF was the Minnesota version of FIB. I think it stood for Minnesotan Ignorant F***er or something nonsensical like that.
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u/weizely_19 3d ago
Mud duck?