- Linguists suggest “ope” may have come from Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Midwest.
- Not just “oops”: Despite appearances, “ope” is distinct from the word “oops.”
- Some Michiganders use “ope” to apologize, while others use it to point out something noteworthy. Its use has changed over generations.
- People across Michigan “ope,” though it’s more commonly used by white English speakers than by other groups.
Picture this, Michigander: You’re walking through Meijer(s), standing in front of the milk cooler, eyeing that 2% milk.
But there’s someone else there — taking their sweet time, studying the very same cooler. You’re on a tight schedule. You need the milk, and you need to get home.
So what do you say? I bet you step forward, lean in, edging just slightly in front of the slow milk buyer. You reach for the handle and say, in your best Michigan Nice voice:
Ope! Excuse me. Just gonna sneak right past ya and grab some milk.
"Ope." The word that’s snuck right past us for so long has now a social media obsession among Michiganders, Wisconsinites, and Minnesotans alike. But where does it actually come from? Can we lay claim to this word? And who says it the most? That's what listener Earl Johnston has been wondering all along. He sent this question to the On Hand team:
“I would just like to know where 'ope' came about and where it's used. Is it predominantly Michigan or is it a Midwest thing?”
The thing is, we don’t actually know who said it first, but some linguists have a couple of theories of how Michiganders came to "ope."
“Ope" has been a feature of Midwest speech longer than Midwest speech has been analyzed,” said Betsy Sneller, codirector of Michigan State University’s Sociolinguistics Lab. Sneller has been researching the way Michiganders use language, how it changes, and why, through the MI Diaries Project — a research project documenting changes in the lives and language of people living all over the state.
Sneller said because "ope" has been used in the Midwest for so long without being studied, it's hard to settle on a single origin story.
“One theory is that it came from Norwegian immigrants to the Minnesota-Wisconsin area and then that spread,” explained Sneller. “But there’s not a word in Norwegian that is “ope”.
Another theory, Sneller explained, is that the word "Ope" just became an alternate form of “oops,” but she said that's probably unlikely because the Pan-American English "oops" still exists in the Midwest.
“Ope really does seem to be the case of an American regionalism that started pretty shortly after immigration and stayed strong as a marker of regional identity,” they added.
Sneller’s research suggests that not everyone in Michigan "opes" in the same way. Some use it in the place of an “I’m sorry." But there are others that use to point something out.
“It doesn’t just mean ‘Sorry, I’m about to bother you in some way.’ It can also mean that I’m about to say something nice, like, ‘Ope, it’s sunny in December,’” Sneller said.
Even though there are some of you out there that like to say “ope” is associated with your auntie from up north, the truth is people of all ages from across the state use “ope." However, if you are white and speak English as a first language, its more likely that you “ope” compared to a Black Michigander. That's in part, Sneller said, because African American Vernacular English, and American dialect, tend to use "oop" in place of the "ope."
If your native language is something other than English, or if you moved from somewhere not in the Midwest, it's possible you might not ‘ope’ as much as other Michiganders.
“With that said, 'ope' is one of these things that is pretty easy for transplants and non English speakers to pick up, and that's because its what's called a ‘discourse marker,’” Sneller explained.
A discourse marker fills a gap in the sentence, sometimes to signal that you’re still talking, or that you’re about to tell something more interesting, or that you’re about to apologize.
Its ease of use makes “ope” a term likely to remain in Michigan for generations to come. A three-letter word that is both practical and capable of letting others know where you’re from without you having to say much else. And as Professor Sneller reminded us, if you live in Michigan, you’re part of this community — so feel free to ope your way along as much as you want.
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