<p>I grew up outside NYC, with parents from South Carolina, but I’ve now lived in the Boston area for 20+ years. I know accents. </p>
<p>IMHO, it doesn’t matter whether your accent is Southern, New Yawk, or Bahston - if it’s thick, you sound stupid. You can be the most educated person in the world, but if you have a thick regional accent people will not be inclined to take you seriously.</p>
<p>A movie theater in the snotty-little-college-brat part of Cambridge, Mass., used to keep a sign on the popcorn machine that read: “HAWT BUDDED PUPCONN”</p>
<p>Dke - I say those words the same way, even after 20 years in the midwest.</p>
<p>“Anybody else drink out of a Bubbla? aka water fountain.”</p>
<p>Moved from Mich. to Mass. when I was 16. My high school had bubblas (bubblers?) all over the place. Aftah you drank a lawt of wawtah from the bubbla, you went to the basement.</p>
<p>No, you don’t go to the basement Schmaltz, you go down cellah.</p>
<p>My dad was from Brooklyn, my mom New Hampshire, both had Russian parents creating some interesting accents. I grew up in Queens and when I was in high school my dad used to smack me everytime I spoke with a serious NY accent and then would say, “You’ll thank me for that someday.” He’s right, most of the time people don’t hear an accent from me. When I’m drunk, fuggadahbouit, total New Yawka.</p>
<p>That accent quiz pegged me as Northeast New England. But it equally suggested a Western accent. I was born and raised in southern ME… and have lived the second half of my life in southern NH. I don’t drop r’s where they belong or add them where they don’t. </p>
<p>However… Sneakers are very disctinct from shoes, and I was raised in a house with a cellar, but my kids call it a basement.</p>
<p>Another one that baffles me is loam, or top soil. A lot of folks I know from NE MA call it loom - as in a textile weaving. My pronounciation rhymes with foam.</p>
<p>No, you take a staihs to a cellah…the basements were on each flooah…they were the rooms mahked Men or Women wheah you went when you had to take a wicked %$&@.</p>
<p>My two-story, four-room elementary school had bathrooms that were literally in the basement… so it made sense when we had to ask, “May I please go to the basement?” </p>
<p>My mother was raised outside of Boston and referred to the space under the main floor of our house as a cellar. But my husband’s family (from Northern ME…near the Canadian border) called that same space the basement. I dilligently refer to it as the cellar in our family…but the kids call it the basement, like their Dad.</p>
<p>Also, my dad, brother, and I give our mom a funny look when she asks for “pop” and “hots.” From Buffalo area. We gaffed and correct her that it’s soooo-daaahhh and hawt dawg! My bro and I grew up in Joisey so our references are closer to NYC.</p>