Decline of the Boston accent?

Parent Cafe
21

<p>Mark Wahlberg can do his real Dot Ave accent. Lots of other actors do exaggerated accents. Like in The Departed, I have no idea what Martin Sheen thought he sounded like. Or Alec Baldwin. Leo DiCaprio got it right. </p>

<p>If you watch The Fighter, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo do the hard edged working class version well. </p>

<p>It’s like if you hear Harry Connick, Jr. talk, he has a solid New Orleans accent. That comes from the mix of Italian, etc. His isn’t really broad because he isn’t working class. </p>

<p>It isn’t that accents are discouraged in schools but that you fit in with your socio-economic group.</p>

22

<p>The Boston accent sounds horrible. Why anyone would lament its demise is beyond me.
Sorry to rain on your parade.</p>

23

<p>razorsharp, it’s what you’re used to. I spent summers in Rhode Island when I was a child and even today I love to hear someone with a heavy New England accent. Feels like I’m home.</p>

24

<p>VeryHappy:</p>

<p>As you’re located in CT, you know that the heavy “New England” accent is not applicable to most of CT which is in NE.</p>

25

<p>My mother was a graduate of that school when it was Cambridge High and Latin…she gave us our accents ;)</p>

26

<p>ethics1998, you’re correct. But I didn’t want to say “Boston accent” since I know it from Rhode Island so I expanded it to “New England.” </p>

<p>Regardless, I still love it.</p>

27

<p>For anyone nostalgic for a Southie accent… ;0)
(warning: off-color humor)</p>

<p>[The</a> Real Housewives of South Boston - YouTube](<a href=“The Real Housewives of South Boston - YouTube”>The Real Housewives of South Boston - YouTube)</p>

28

<p>"But I didn’t want to say “Boston accent” since I know it from Rhode Island so I expanded it to “New England.” </p>

<p>Interestingly enough, Rhode Islanders claim that their accent is different than Boston’s even though I can’t tell the difference.</p>

29

<p>I’ve lived in the Boston area for the 32 years and I don’t encounter folks with a strong Boston/New England accent all that often. The people I know who have a more pronounced Boston accent tend to be older (over 40) and they grew up in the city (not in suburbia). Also, most of them generally don’t drop the “R” as in CAH (for car). What I notice most about friends with a more pronounced Boston/New England accent is the use of a broad “A”. For example, where I grew up in the Midwest I pronounced the word Aunt–as if I were talking about an insect–“Ant”. Here it sounds like “Ah-nt”. I also hear friends who were raised in this area use the broad “A” in words like “half”, “bath”, or “can’t”. </p>

<p>My kids were born in Boston and until the oldest was three, we lived in Cambridge and then moved to suburbia. My kids don’t have a Boston/New England accent at all.</p>

30

<p>Pray it won’t disappear in my lifetime. I love it. My dh is from MA and we live in VA and the accent thrives in his family and I LOVE it because I love them. I love going up every summer and I KNOW I’m in New England.<br>
By the same token, I notice when I go “home” to NC, there is a distinct loss of the old NC accent. And I met a young lady from Charleston, SC this weekend and you’d never guess she was from the south. : (</p>

31

<p>There’s a great McDonald’s coffee commercial airing here in NE (maybe other places too, don’t know) that has actors trying to do a New England accent. Funny the first few times you see it.</p>

<p>Director: Do Connecticut
Actress: What’s Connecticut?</p>

32

<p>I haven’t had the chance to travel to Boston yet. But when I do, I’ll be very disappointed if I don’t hear a Boston accent. DH and I love to listen to Car Talk. We could care less about car repair, those two are so funny and entertaining. I’m glad NPR still broadcasts their shows.</p>

33

<p>lilmom-If you’re ever in Harvard Square look up. In one of the upper windows you’ll see the gilded lettering of the esteemed law offices of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe!</p>

34

<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>I didn’t think tom’s accent was very good until I hear the real Captain Phillips on Fresh Air. As far as matching Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks nailed it. What that means, however, is that Captain Phillips has a very odd accent. :)</p>

35

<p>D dated a boy from Boston and I asked her about his accent and she said what accent. Her roommate talked about how she and I have a Michigan accent lol! D’s current boyfriend is from New Jersey and I don’t hear any accent.</p>

36

<p>The worst fake Boston accent I ever heard was Richard Thomas in Common Ground. I watched only a bit of this mini-series based on J. Anthony Lukas’s book about the Boston busing crisis, but his atrocious fake accent is still rattling around in my head over 20 years later.</p>

<p>Probably the second worst was John Ratzenberger’s Cliff Clavin from Cheers. As it was a comedy and he was such a likable blue-collar character we Bostonians forgave him pretty readliy.</p>

37

<p>Cliff’s accent was so over the top it was closer to the weird Kennedy accent we remember. Nice thing about the show is most of the time they didn’t try for accents.</p>