Minnesotans are a very pragmatic people. I've said it before about the Scandanavians who settled here. They left their homelands and the harsh living conditions only to find Minnesota and say, "Hey, this looks a lot like home!" while totally forgetting that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck there's a very good chance that it'll be just as cold, harsh, and hard to farm as Norway. But they settled and stayed and have to pretend like this was the perfect destination the whole time. They had to fake like it didn't matter and swallow all of the Nordic rage at the situation that was certainly boiling beneath the surface. After a few generations, that rage was compacted into a tiny little ball deep in their bowels where it now lives in undisturbed silence.
You really don't want to piss off a person who has hundreds of years of repressed Viking rage living in their guts. Pandora's box has got nothing on what would be unleashed if you were to crack that little nugget. To stay the course, Minnesotans have to rely on very slight phrases that always indicate a much greater meaning.
The closest thing to pure excitement that you will ever hear uttered in Minnesota is the phrase, "That's a heckuva deal". This is what you say when you learn your son has gotten a full scholarship to the U of M; when you win a new car; when you realize you've finally hit that Powerball jackpot. It's a line that's delivered with straight lips and dead eyes and a monotone voice. No inflection is necessary - a Minnesotan can always tell when another Minnesotan is happy.
Conversely, pure anguish is most violently expressed by the phrase, "It could be worse." And it could - you could be back in Norway. "Lost my whole crop to those Japanese beetles. Gonna lose the house. Well, it could be worse." This phrase is used in the worst situations imaginable. "Yep, lost little Timmy down the well. Snapped his neck in two. But I've got those other two boys...it could be worse."
For other bad or baffling situations a Minnesotan with either preface or conclude a statement with, "I don't know". You have to say it like "dunno". Like, "Marcy says her daughter wants to move to the city and take up performance art. She is such a good baker - her pies always win blue ribbons at the fair. I dunno. I just dunno." Or, "I dunno, but it this car only has five thousand miles on the thing and I've already had to replace the transmission." It's more of a disappointed phrase, to be sure.
Other filler phrases are, "You bet", "You got that right", "Not so good of a deal", "Not too bad of a deal", "That's different" and "Whatever". You can carry on entire conversations with people using only these six phrases.
