<p>Just over a week ago, I attended a reunion of the defunct company I worked for in Lowell MA in the late 70s. All of us erstwhile 20 somethings looked really different, but we had a blast. I had last Thursday and Sat available and went around places from Boston up to the Lake Winnipesaukee area where the foliage was peaking and beyond to the Kancamagus Highway for some hiking. Lovely weather and foliage all over.</p>
<p>What I noticed in the trip while speaking to the folks in the hotels I stayed in and the restaurants I frequented was that the youngsters have had a far less distinct accent than what I remember from my days there (or for that matter of the crowd of fogeys at my reunion).</p>
<p>Is it my imagination or is “pack your kah at the lot in the back, sir” dying away? Sad, really sad, if this is the case.</p>
<p>If you say you went to the Southie and you don’t hear any accent then I would be a little surprise, but Lake Winnipesaukee and hikihg the Kancamagus or even Lowell?</p>
<p>Accents are dying amongst the younger set because of the influence of TV, transplants, etc. When I first moved to the South, I was amazed how the city kids really didn’t have accents. Rural kids do, but the city kids didn’t.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in the Boston area my entire adult life, and I’ve seldom heard a “pure” Boston accent.</p>
<p>That’s why the faked Boston accents in movies are especially hard to stomach (a current example I understand is Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips – and the captain came from Winchester, which is far from Southie.)</p>
<p>It’s not your imagination. If you call LLBean, you’re lucky if you get a real down east accent but the person on the phone is in Maine, not some remote call center. (Well, I suppose it is remote, it’s in Maine, but you know what I mean). When my now 20something kids were little they would identify someone as talking “like Uncle Jim” or “Aunt Betty” (pronounced like it’s spelled, not like “ant”). There’s a very early video of Ted Kennedy, I think when he was preteen, talking to an interviewer (might have been when Joe Kennedy was made ambassador to England). That accent was different from the 80 year old Ted Kennedy. </p>
<p>I think accents are more class identifiers than they are regional, these days. Everyone goes off to college, and they come home sounding like Tom Brokaw - the girls in a little higher register. The Boston accent is going the way of the Betamax. The only tradition left is the tendency of curmudgeons like myself to bemoan and lament. I try not to mutter “hell in a hand basket” but it’s so true.</p>
<p>There’s definitely still Boston accent around. I agree that it’s something more of a class identifier but I think what you’re hearing is also that Boston is full of transplants. There’s a good chance that your hotel and restaurant staff are college students that did not grow up in Boston.</p>
<p>You want to hang around that the local bars in Southie and Cambridge (probably not Harvard Square) and Charlestown and Quincy and Dorchester – not the trendy ones, either. I get my hair cut at a family-owned place in Cambridge and the owners have lived in East Cambridge their whole lives, and I’ve met a long-time city councillor getting his hair cut there because they all grew up together. Strong accents in that place.</p>
<p>Made many visits to Boston and the suburbs for over 10 years. I rarely heard the stereotypical Boston or even New England accent, whether we were sight seeing in Lexington/Concord, eating pizza off Massachusetts Avenue near Northeaster U, or having ice cream or chowder near Harvard Square. The only time I remember listening to a distinct accent was a downtown Boston city tour guide, a young guy and weekend stand up comic who joked about his dad’s speech, i.e. car keys = khakis pants, and Aunt “Linder” = Linda.</p>
<p>LL Bean is not in the part of Maine where you would hear a lot of really strong Down East accents. They are out there, but I don’t think that most people in Maine had the strong version even 30 years ago.</p>
<p>In Boston, it is definitely a class marker, and always has been. (BTW, I knew people from Winchester 30 years ago, and they definitely did NOT have the Boston accent.)</p>
<p>In my experience, what you REALLY don’t hear is the classic Brooklyn accent: a poil of a goil, for example. I’ve only ever known one person who had it, who was of my parents’ generation, and I’ve known a fair number of people who were Brooklyn born and bred.</p>
<p>I mostly hear the accents among older people, though you still see some of it, like among the cast of “Jersey Shore” (who are from Staten Island), and I also hear it in some suburban enclaves where people from the ‘old neighborhoods’ moved, where young people have a Nyawk accent, but it has died out. Between people moving out of the old neighborhoods after WWII, and the gentrification in the last 20 years where all these people have moved in from elsewhere, there isn’t a lot left. In places like the south bronx a new accent, the "spanglish’ of those from hispanic backrounds is present, but for the most part it has been lost among those younger than 50 or 60.</p>
<p>I noticed in Boston I didn’t hear a lot of the accent usually associated with it, though I did hear it in south boston and in Dorchester when I was there, but even there it seems to be dying out. I remember when my sister moved to the Boston area 30 years ago, I was surprised even then I didn’t hear about it, and my sister’s roommate said that it never was as big as people thought, and yes, it was generally most associated with working class areas, like where she grew up (I don’t recall where she was from). </p>
<p>I suspect accents are going to die out because of tv and people moving around, they tend to thrive when people live and work in the same area their whole lives, which is getting to be more and more rare. I am sure they will continue to exist, but most of us will not run into them all that much.</p>
<p>As to bad movie Boston accents, how authentic were Matt Damon’s and Ben Affleck’s in Good Will Hunting? I know they both grew up in Massachusetts, but I don’t know if they were from Boston.</p>
<p>Matt Damon and Ben Affleck grew up in Cambridge. I think the decline of the accent may be partly because so many people who go to college there from out of state stay in the area. All of my family still has it, but mine gets a bit diluted since I lived away for close to 25 yrs.
My possibly future son in law grew up on the south shore but went to prep school…I hear absolutely no accent from him</p>
<p>I love Boston accents and hope they don’t disappear! (or is that disappeah)</p>
<p>But I think this is silly -
</p>
<p>“Everyone” doesn’t go off to college. The vast majority of people in this country go to colleges that are near their homes. The sleep-away cross-country experience is pretty limited, though of course it dominates this sight.</p>
<p>That has also been my experience in the Boston area. With the exception of some neighborhoods(<em>Cough</em> Southie <em>Cough</em>), the accents do tend to be more common in the suburbs/rural areas…especially the further you get from Boston. One close Boston friend who spent most of his childhood in Western Massachusetts does have a noticeable Boston accent. However, it’s not as strong as those of his older relatives. </p>
<p>As for southern accents, I’ve noticed and heard from many southerner college classmates/colleagues how they’ve felt the need to temper their regional accents…especially outside of the South because of all the negative stereotypes associated with the south. </p>
<p>It’s a bit of a conflict with them as while they suffer from some of those stereotypes, they also freely admit some of it is well-earned due to past history and continuing idiotic actions by older generations/politicians from their towns/regions. </p>
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<p>Some of it may also be due to parents/teachers being concerned about how strong regional accents may impede educational/career opportunities and thus, discouraging the use of accents in elementary school. </p>
<p>This was my experience in NYC Catholic elementary school…especially considering several teachers, concerned neighbors who themselves had a strong New Yawker, and my parents were concerned I sounded like a “NYC street kid” in first-second grade with all the negative connotations it may have for teachers/employers from higher SES background who may discriminate on such a basis. A concern which isn’t unfounded as illustrated from my studies of US history or discussions on this topic among friends who are teachers/educators or scholars of this area of US History/Studies. </p>
<p>By the time I got to middle school, even close friends had a hard time believing I was a native New Yorker considering the fact I lost that “street kid” accent by then. </p>
<p>This has only continued into the present as people are shocked when they found that yes, I am a native-born New Yorker. :)</p>