Update Feb. 19: The bill to make Utahn the official state demonym unanimously passed the Senate. It's now off to the House. Our original story continues below.
“Utahn,” “Utahan” and “Utahian.”
Those were the answers random individuals at the Utah State Capitol gave when KUER asked them to spell the word used to describe someone who lives in Utah. For Republican Sen. Dan McCay, only one is correct: Utahn.
He feels so passionately about it that he wants to enshrine that spelling into law. SB230 would officially use Utahn as the state demonym, which represents a dweller of a certain country, state or city.
“While it may seem trivial, I think how we're known and how people see Utahns is important, and we want to make sure they spell it correctly,” he said during a Feb. 12 Senate Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee hearing.
McCay hopes codifying Utahn into state law will stop national news outlets from referring to state residents as a Utahan — with an extraneous A. He presented evidence, too. On a projector in the committee room, McCay displayed a picture of a New York Times Crossword puzzle on a screen. The hint read “a Deseret News reader, typically.” But the answer to the clue wasn’t Utahn. It was Utahan.
“I had to struggle with this for hours to try and figure it out,” McCay said.
When asked by Sen. Ann Millner, the Republican committee chair, why he didn’t end up finishing the entire crossword puzzle, McCay bore his truth.
“There's too much rage. I'm just going to be honest,” he said jokingly. “I couldn't handle it anymore.”
All emotion aside, McCay brought in Quin Monson, political science professor at Brigham Young University and partner at Y2 Analytics, to make the case on why the bill is necessary. Monson is a fierce advocate for Utahn, and to prove his point, he conducted a survey called Call Me a Utahn in 2021. It asked Utah voters to list the correct way to spell the demonym. Ninety percent responded with Utahn and 10% added that pesky extra A.
Monson also told the committee that he found inconsistencies in the way media outlets spell it. Local media, like The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, used Utahn almost 99.8% of the time.
“In fact, the only time they use it incorrectly is when they're making fun of people that use it incorrectly,” he said.
National media, though, didn’t follow suit. Monson said his analysis showed The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times used Utahan 36.8% of the time. He noted that The Associated Press and USA Today had a better track record and “got it right” 62.8% of the time.
In a text message to KUER, Monson said that the goal of the survey was to encourage The Associated Press to put Utahn in its style guide and for Merriam-Webster Dictionary to list Utahn as the sole definition of someone who resides in the Beehive State (it lists both). The AP Stylebook doesn’t currently have a recommendation on how to refer to Utah residents.
Interestingly, the official style guide of the U.S. government gets it right. You’ll find Utahn on page 95 along with other state demonyms.
In the committee, Monson argued the bill would clear up confusion and promote unity.
“I think this move to declare an official demonym of the state of Utah and spell it correctly in our law, is just one more push in the right direction of encouraging everyone to do it correctly, and especially encouraging national media to do it correctly,” he said.
And McCay is one step closer to getting his wish. The committee unanimously sent his bill to the Senate for a full vote.
“It’s a very simple bill. And unlike other issues, this one has over 90% support,” he said. “So I'm going to ride this wave of popular public support for one of my bills.”
