Am I The Only One In ND That Had Never Heard Of This Word?

I've been out here in North Dakota for over 10 years now and sometimes I feel like I just moved here yesterday

Have you ever had that feeling? You grew up and spent most of your life in another state, then in the blink of an eye, it seems, a job opportunity takes you to a new city, completely different in almost every way. I STILL think it's charming when the first few days of snow arrive ( almost everyone hates me for that ) as winter slowly kicks in.

I'm from California where people have been known to panic if it gets below 65 degrees

I thought I had heard and seen most of the wonders of North Dakota. I mean, after all, just about a year ago I found out what a Fleischkukle is. One of our sales staff was blown away that this delicious treat had escaped me. I now know when to use the expression "Uff da" - apparently, it's not just a polite North Dakota way of cursing. Now on the other side of the coin, I'm quite sure that people out here have never heard of the word gnarly. A term used by surfer dudes and dudettes ( with big white globs of sunscreen on their noses ) out in California.

So when I saw this word in use two weeks ago, I was positive they made a spelling error

A friend of mine on Facebook ( she's a native North Dakotan ) recently in conversation used the word OPE - I immediately corrected her blunder and told her she was missing an 'N'.....ironically she wrote back "nope ...that Ope was indeed what she meant"

Then just this morning, another native friend ( yes I know, shocker that I have more than one ) posted this :

"Was jammin' to Eminem this morning and had to see how these lyrics were spelled out. Looks like Eminem has a little North Dakota in him. He gets it. Ope."

May be an image of text that says 'The clocks run out, times up, over, blaow Snap back to reality, ope there goes gravity Ope there goes Rabbit, he choked He's so mad, but he won't give up that easy? No'

Now completely frustrated, I did some digging......on YouTube

School Of Ope YouTube

I'm sure more mysterious North Dakota traditions are still out there for me to learn about

LOOK: Here are the best lake towns to live in

Many of the included towns jump out at the casual observer as popular summer-rental spots--the Ozarks' Branson, Missouri, or Arizona's Lake Havasu--it might surprise you to dive deeper into some quality-of-life offerings beyond the beach and vacation homes. You'll likely pick up some knowledge from a wide range of Americana: one of the last remaining 1950s-style drive-ins in the Midwest; a Florida town that started as a Civil War veteran retirement area; an island boasting some of the country's top public schools and wealth-earners right in the middle of a lake between Seattle and Bellevue; and even a California town containing much more than Johnny Cash's prison blues.

Gallery Credit: Peter Richman

Source: Am I The Only One In ND That Had Never Heard Of This Word?