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Old 09-02-2010, 09:44 AM
 
Location: Maryland's 6th District.
8,358 posts, read 25,155,432 times
Reputation: 6540

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ogre View Post
Judging by how bad--sometimes laughably bad--many "Boston accents" are in movies and television shows, I'm guessing that it's an especially difficult accent to get right if it's something you're trying to imitate, and not your native speech pattern. Most people trying to imitate the accent seem to limit their attempts to the most obvious feature, the dropped R's, and don't get the nuances very well. Jumping back to the subject of actors' botched attempts at a Boston accent, I think one of the worst I've heard was Kevin Costner's accent in Thirteen Days.
It seems that the 'r' is not dropped, but yet replaced with an 'uh' or 'ah' sound depending on the proceeding vowel and the position of the letter 'r' in the word. I could be wrong, but it seems as if Bostonians (and New Englanders in general), are in fact perfectly capable of actually pronouncing the letter 'r'.

For example, how would a Bostonian pronounce these two words:

Robot

Brook
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Old 09-02-2010, 06:22 PM
 
Location: SoCal
2,261 posts, read 7,207,448 times
Reputation: 960
Not only are we capable of it... but we also like to throw it into words where it doesn't belong!

i.e. "I sawr it."



Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Luv View Post
It seems that the 'r' is not dropped, but yet replaced with an 'uh' or 'ah' sound depending on the proceeding vowel and the position of the letter 'r' in the word. I could be wrong, but it seems as if Bostonians (and New Englanders in general), are in fact perfectly capable of actually pronouncing the letter 'r'.

For example, how would a Bostonian pronounce these two words:

Robot

Brook
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Old 09-02-2010, 07:47 PM
 
Location: Maryland's 6th District.
8,358 posts, read 25,155,432 times
Reputation: 6540
Quote:
Originally Posted by readymade View Post
Not only are we capable of it... but we also like to throw it into words where it doesn't belong!

i.e. "I sawr it."

Yeah, my mom is from Brooklyn and she throws on an r, too. Funny thing is that my dad was also born in Brooklyn, and he didn't. He had no descernable East Coast accent what-so-ever.
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