Source: Speak Up
Standard: American accent
Language level: Advanced
Welcome to Hell!
The state of Michigan in the US Midwest is home to Detroit, capital of the nation’s automotive industry. Not only that, it is the birthplace of many famous Americans, including the late political activist Malcom X and, more recently, singers like Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin and Madonna, basketball player Magic Johnson and film director, Michael Moore. Moore was from the depressed industrial town of Flint, which he helped put on the map with his first documentary, Roger and Me, in 1989.
Michigan is also home to a smaller town: Hell, Legend has it that this bizarre name was born out of a linguistic misunderstanding. In the 1830s some German travelers were passing through on a stagecoach. When they stepped out to admire the view one of them remarked that it was “so schon under hell,” meaning “so beautiful and bright.” The locals overheard this and the name stuck. 170 years later the town hasn’t grown much. Residents say the population is only 72: according to Wikipedia, it is 266. The town consists of a few houses and stores and its main source of income is the sale of kitsch souvenirs with a diabolical theme. Ron Douguay, for example, makes “supremely evil pizza” at the Hell Country Store. He says that he and his colleagues are always on the look-out for events that could help business:
Ron Dougay
Standard: American accent
Believes it or not, there’s only three stores here. I mean, this is the town, that’s all it is, but every year we seem to get something more…we pinpoint certain dates, like Halloween is big, Friday 13th is big, anything that goes against…oh, gosh, you hate to say it, but, you know, anything, bad luck, or evil, so to speak, we try to, you know, capitalize on that and make some money off it, so we kind of promote it on, you know, radio stations and in the papers and things like that.
THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
In actual fact June 6th 2006 was to provide the citizens of Hell with a wonderful opportunity:
Ron Dougay:
The date 6/6/6, you know, like the number of the Beast, so to speak, in the Bible, it’s a big deal, you know, since we’re Hell, you know, people kind of put two and two together and it snowballed – pardon the pun! – but it got really big, we got like 12.000 people out here and they were lined up for gosh, 2…300 yards out the store and they bought everything in the Hell Country Store that we had. Everything was gone.
AND IN ANN ARBOR…
If you decide to “go to Hell” – the one is Michigan, that is – you might also want to go to “Paradise,” which is in the northern part of the state. Hell itself is about 20 miles (32 km) from Ann Arbor. This is home to the prestigious University of Michigan which, trivia fans may like to know, was where the young Madonna was briefly a dance major.
According to local resident Dan Mazur, Ann Arbor is the all-American community:
Dan Mazur
Standard: American accent
Well, here is the US now many people are expressing a desire for what they call “American Values” and, when they express this, really what they’re talking about are Midwestern values. Ann Arbor is clearly in the Midwest of the United States, halfway between the East Coast and the West Coast. Midwestern values, unfortunately for some, though, imply small town America and Ann Arbor has that flavor to it, but it also has the University of Michigan here and the capital of Pfizer and is close to the automotive center of the United States as well, so we have the Midwestern lifestyle, the small-town feel to it, but very dynamic and international culture. And so that gives us a lot of appeal both to tourists who come here, but also to small business that…very hi-tech-oriented and…bring a lot of wealth to our area, and so it’s a very dynamic culture.
Any mistakes? Let me to know, sometimes when I do the transcription I made mistakes, 'cause there are some different accents, I'm not good at in American accent. Do you like this post? Share it for friends, please.
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