Comments on: If Ancestors Could Talk: The Words of Nineteenth-Century New England

By: If Ancestors Could Talk: The History Captured in Our Words. « Forgotten New England

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 05:35:31 +0000

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By: Forgotten New England

Forgotten New England — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:24:13 +0000

Thanks – I’m a frequent visitor to your blog – and appreciate the link earlier this week.

With that said, how could I write my first post on New England accents without mentioning the Kennedys? I grew up north of Boston, near the New Hampshire border and agree that we don’t speak with the “Kennedy accent” either. But, there are similarities between the “Kennedy accent” and the “Boston accent”.

I would argue that the “Kennedy accent” was heavily influenced by the time he spent in Massachusetts – his first 10 years in Brookline (and those most relevant to his language development), as well as the summers he spent afterwards in Hyannisport. And, then there’s his family – Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy both had Boston upbringings – as did his grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald. Bobby and Ted Kennedy may have spent their formative years in New York, but their language definitely would have been influenced by their older siblings and relatives. There are vestiges of Portuguese pronunciations and syntax in my own family, even after 100 years in the US. (There’s an idea for a future post.)

But – moving onto more dangerous ground – there are some who would argue that the accent of southern New England, Massachusetts included, is influenced by its proximity to New York. I think there are solid arguments to emphasize the distinctions between the accents of NY and Boston, but a spectrum does exist as you move southward into Rhode Island and find “caw-fees”.

Thanks for stopping by, and for the comment. This is a fun topic – and I’m hoping to post the next post in the series soon.

By: MarkB

MarkB — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:31:13 +0000

Great blog, and a favorite topic of mine – or at least a topic I’ve often wondered about. I do have to take exception to the idea that JFK ‘grew up’ in Massachusetts. The family moved to New York after he finished the fourth grade. They spent summers on the Cape, but school in New York and in a private school in Connecticut would not have left much room for a Boston accent. And the fact that Bobby and Ted shared the ‘Kennedy accent,’ while not living in Massachusetts should say a lot.

People who grew up in metropolitan Boston thought the Kennedys had an ‘accent.’ Well there you go – it never occurred to me that my parents or teachers in Boston had an accent. When ever I hear someone in the media do a ‘Boston accent’ by trying to ape the Kennedys, it may as well be from Idaho to me – I don’t recognize it as anything I ever heard growing up in Boston.

pet peeve – can’t help it.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:15:12 +0000

My mother’s family is from a region that is known as the “Ottawa Valley”, Ontario, Canada. The region was noted for the Irish sounding dialect that was maintained to my great-grandparents generation. It had its own nuances, so it didn’t quite sound like a Newfoundland or Maritime accent. When my mother attended high school, the school had a teaching sister whose job it was to teach elocution lessons to the girls to “rid them of that terrible Ottawa Valley accent”, my mother and her friends were astonished….they didn’t know they had an accent. It must have worked, as she doesn’t have an accent to my ears….mind you I had a french teacher tell my parents that they would have to teach me English first when we moved from Nova Scotia to Quebec

By: Karen K

Karen K — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:50:31 +0000

I’ve always been fascinated by dialect and accents, especially of how people of the past would have spoken.

I remember being in middle school and listening to a lecture by Dr. Engel (can’t remember his first name, but he’s an expert on the English language), and according to him, the British accent we know today dates from about the middle of the 18th century and was a conscious attempt by Britons to make the English language prettier. It didn’t exist in the 17th century when the Pilgrims and Puritans came over, which is why Americans don’t have a variation of it as Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans do.

I’d guess that the accents of New Englanders today are probably close to the accents of pre-1750′s England.

I loved the expressions you cite too. My parents were from Boston, so I remember Coke being called “tonic” and having things described as things as “wicked” and “pissa”, ha.

Can you imagine what people will think of OUR colloquial terms and expressions? I remember that for about six months after I saw Waterboy, my favorite expression was “open up a can of whup-ass.” And I warn my students to “tighten up” when they get to talkative or hyper.