"Uff Da" in America

[Smaland]

My mother uses the expression "Uff Da" in conversation on a regular basis. Found a Wikipedia page that gives information about this phrase and its use in the United States. It seems to suggest that only Norwegians use it, but surely the Swedes use it as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uff_da

Also found a website named http://www.uffdaware.com/. Think I have an idea of something to get my mother for Christmas.

[Jamt]

Might it have been “usch då”?
Uff da might very well be a local saying in Småland.
Usch då is a common saying in Sweden. I don’t know how to translate it to English.

[Smaland]

Might it have been “usch då”?
Uff da might very well be a local saying in Småland.
Usch då is a common saying in Sweden. I don’t know how to translate it to English.

Mom has always said "uff da", but thank you for asking.

I've never seen "usch då" before, but it does look quite similar to "uff da".

[Ulex]

"Uff da" (uff då) is definately a Norwegian expression, as wikipedia suggests, but it is more used as a way to express surprise and disgust. I may be wrong, but I would say this expression is "girlish" and is mostly used by women; any comments on that, Norwegian friends Ladejarlen and Hawkr?

It has become a mark of Scandinavian roots, particularly for people from North Dakota and Minnesota.

This phrase suggests that the Scandinavian Americans are keeping strong ties to eachother and remember their heritage. Good! Could it be that the Scandi-Americans have developed a general expression of their own, like emigrants tend to do elsewhere?

[Lenny]

My grandmother always said "Uff Da" as a term of shock or when something went badly - like coarser people say "Damn!" ...Sometimes she'd also use it in a humorous way too.

My father did not pick up use of the phrase in a day-to-day way at all, though he would occasionally say it in a semi-tongue-in-cheek manner. He always has identified himself as "a Norwegian" even though he'd never been there and spoke none of the language. He couldn't eat enough "lefse" though, asbolutely loves it - and has never forgiven my cousin's now-husband for once mistakenly thinking it was "tortillas" back then they were just dating 10-15 years ago now. he still mocks him for that.

(My grandmother was born in Iowa in the 1910s and spoke no language but Norwegian until age 5 when she entered school and started learning English. She married a man whose grandparents were all Danes).

This phrase suggests that the Scandinavian Americans are keeping strong ties to eachother and remember their heritage. Good! Could it be that the Scandi-Americans have developed a general expression of their own, like emigrants tend to do elsewhere?

In general they did until the crazy boom times starting in the 1950s. (WWI era also stung hard for this kind of thing). Something about the postwar boom caused everyone to enthusiastically melt together. This was around the time the last of the Dane Lutheran churches and Finn churches and so on started closing, and all the U.S. Lutheran churches were merging; today there are only three left- two strict conservativeGerman ones and one that is the heir of all the Scandinavian churches and the more moderateGermans - I was baptized into the latter. The 1950s were also the time that the last of the serious Scandinavian-language U.S. newspapers went out of business.

Babies born today to Scandinavian-descent parents probably will not grow up to use any such vocabulary, though they may be aware that "my grandparents said such-and-such" (as in my case.)


The more likely thing to happen than people grasping at the fading wisps of their specific ancestries is for new regional blocs to emerge from the corpse of the USA. If an Upper-Midwest "nation-state" were formed, its white people would easily be genetically over 80% German-Scandinavian. This genepool might then regard itself as a "New-World Scandinavia", which is a more enduring legacy for sure.

[Ladejarlen]

"Uff da" (uff då) is definately a Norwegian expression, as wikipedia suggests, but it is more used as a way to express surprise and disgust. I may be wrong, but I would say this expression is "girlish" and is mostly used by women; any comments on that, Norwegian friends Ladejarlen and Hawkr?

Yes, although used by both genders, it seems like women use it alot more than men.

[Bloodeagle]

Living around many folks from Minnesota. I often here Uff da followed by Ya sure ya betcha!