We're fishing for help with an article we're doing on the range of the Boston Accent. Since all of America isn't using the Boston Accent, one must assume that the Boston Accent stops somewhere. If so, where does it happen, and what does it then become?
The Boston Accent is a tricky thing to explain, as is the cutoff point. Sometimes, when I can't word the preamble properly, I just transcribe Cranberry County Magazine staff conversations...
Stephen Bowden: "I moved from Dorchester to Quincy to Duxbury in a span covering about 5 years. When I went to school in Duxbury, I was almost immediately pulled from class and inserted into Speech Therapy, where they attempted to exorcise my Boston accent like it was demonic possession. I spent hours saying words like 'farther' and 'Jimmy Carter' over and over."
Stacey Monponsett: "I moved to Massachusetts from France as a child. I was initially disappointed that I hadn't landed in one of the cowboy regions. When I settled in Boston, I assumed that everyone in the city spoke like The Godfather, and that, once you drove out of the city a few miles, everyone spoke like Andy Griffith. I can recall being very frustrated when I moved into the suburbs and everyone still sounded like the Boston people. I then, having kept my disappointment to myself and not getting the opportunity to be corrected, assumed that you had to go to Western Massachusetts to get a cowboy accent. This delusion lasted until I went to Smith."
Cranberry Jones: "Why don't we stop in Fairhaven for lunch?"
Jessica Allen: "I grew up there, You're saying it wrong. It's not 'Fair-haven," it's 'Fuh-haven.'"
CJ: "'Fah-haven?'"
Jessica: "No, Fuh-haven."
CJ: "I grew up 20 miles from you. I can't believe that we differ this much phonetically."
Jessica: "Why don't we stop in New Bedford for lunch?"
CJ: "New Beffuh!"
Jessica: "Never mind. I'm no longer hungry."
Girl From Rural Kentucky At A Bourne Hotel: "Excuse me, Sir... would you talk to my friend for a moment?"
Stephen: "What do you want me to say?"
Kentucky: (laughs) "Whatever you want..."
Stephen: (taking phone) "Hey, how you doin'?"
Girl On Phone: "Are you an actor?"
Stephen: "No, I'm a reporter."
Girl On Phone: "Say 'Harvard isn't that far from Boston Harbor,' please"
Stephen: "'Harvard isn't that far from Boston Harbor.'"
Girl On Phone: "Well, I'll be dipped..."
Girl From Rural Kentucky: (grabbing phone from Stephen) "See? I told you it was real. Y'all owe me twenty dollars, bitch!"
Girl On Phone: (heard faintly) "I thought they just made that accent up for movies."
Stacey: "Being a French immigrant to Boston had one benefit.... I was the only one at AOL Sports who was able to say 'Brett Favre' effortlessly. His last name is sort of like how Americans say 'five,' but not really."
Abdullah: "Southerners add a syllable, I bet."
Stacey: (performs the worst Southern accent ever) "Fav-ruh."
Abdullah "All of those 'R' sounds that Boston people drop? They are sent to Texas, and put into words like 'wash.'"
America is a land of great diversity. You can have a Cape Verdean girl hand you Mexican food on the Irish Riviera, or you could French-kiss a Russian escort girl at a Swedish massage parlor... all in Massachusetts. This diversity ranges into Accents, and America must have thousands of them.
Several of these accents stand out. California, holding a coast that is about Georgia to Boston, probably has a thousand other regional accents aside from the Valley Girl one... but not if I just shut my mind to the possibility. Southerners have their own thing going on. Anyone with a TV has probably heard the Noo Yawk accent, and perhaps can even differentiate between it and the Lon-Guy-Land accent.
This differentiation leads into today's theme... Is there a difference between the Boston accent and the Cape Cod accent? If there is, where does it begin to assert itself? Does the South Coast favor one or the other, or do they have their own thing? Where do places like Maine and Rhode Island fit into this?
We're seeking your feedback on the matter. We'd like informed opinions, wild guesses, "I've lived in all three" sort of observations, lines of demarcation, bad jokes/puns, "I'm from here and my wife is from there" Mars/Venus tangents, "I'm from Connecticut and you're all goofy-sounding" disses and whatever else might pop into your head.
Feel free to take advantage of this page's COMMENTS feature, or you can drop some knowledge in the comments section of whatever Facebook group you saw this article in. We won't quote anyone directly, unless they get off a good line. I'll try to chase down a linguistic expert while you're doing that, and we'll see what sort of non-rhotic fun we can have later this week. We thank you in advance for your help.
It just occurred to me that there are 6 billion or so people on the planet, and I am most likely the only one thinking "Where do you find a Boston linguistics expert on an August weekend?"
