A funny thread----Boston'isms (Lynn, Salem: pay, accent, Chinese)

[riffgo]

Oh, let's keep this going. It's too, too funny!

[moonshadow]

Suits me riffgo! Will help to learn the lingo before I go.

Just pulling up a chair!

[etk1131]

Originally Posted by Matholomew

Lastly, what's with some Bostonians inserting R's where they don't belong? I've heard pizzer, Talbert's (retailer based out of Hingham), idear, and most famously "Cuber" (thanks, Jack).

All those R's that we leave off of the other words have to find their way somewhere. It's conservation of R's! Yay science!

And "soder" is one my favorites from my high school Economics teacher. Fun times.

[seamusnh]

Originally Posted by etk1131

All those R's that we leave off of the other words have to find their way somewhere. It's conservation of R's! Yay science!

And "soder" is one my favorites from my high school Economics teacher. Fun times.

Absolutely correct. For example, just east of Chicago is a state called Indianer...

[haberstroh]

My daughter's name is Dana but her teacher puts an R at the end sometimes. One day my daughter wrote "Daner" at the top of her test for fun and the teacher got mad. ;-). Maybe I should delete this entry before she reads it. Oh well the school year is almost over, and the teacher is otherwise really great. But these Boston accents...

[holden125]

Originally Posted by haberstroh

My daughter's name is Dana but her teacher puts an R at the end sometimes. One day my daughter wrote "Daner" at the top of her test for fun and the teacher got mad. ;-). Maybe I should delete this entry before she reads it. Oh well the school year is almost over, and the teacher is otherwise really great. But these Boston accents...

I can still hear my neighbor yelling out "Petah, Raw-bit, time fah ya suppah"

[RemiJP]

Growing up I always dreaded having to spend hours on a Saturday wandering around a store with my dad called "Summahvuhlumbah". It closed when I was still a kid and it took me until college to realize the store name actually consisted of two words!

Even though my Boston accent has faded, I still use "are" and "our" interchangeably in writing.

[holden125]

I had a teacher once who was just out of college and moved from the Midwest. She tried to get one kid with a really thick accent to change his speech.

One day she said to the kid, "look at this word, how do you say that?"

The kid said "cah." She got very upset and said, "no, it's caR. It's pronounced exactly the way it should be pronounced based on the letters in the word. It's C, then A, and then how do you pronounce that last letter?" The kid looks at her like she's nuts and says, "I pronounce the lettah exactly the way I say the wuh-d. I say it Cah because it's spelled C-A-ah."

Funny thing was that my family went to Michigan for a couple of days shortly after that and I realized the teacher had an accent as bad as anyone in our town. She'd say "Peeeyaaatrick" for "Patrick," and actually said "aitch-ly" for "actually." I'll take Boston speech any day over that Michigan stuff. Or the Baltimore accent.

[MaNova]

I had the accent as a child (born in Gloucester.) I moved to VA at age 9 and remember being picked on for the way I said things.

Such as:


No suh
undaweahs (underwear)
bum (instead of butt)
tonic
bubblah
cellah
so don't I
you's
mumma (instead of "mommy")
stockin's (instead of socks)
facecloth (instead of rag, washcloth)
rubbish
shut the light (instead of turn off the light)
pocketbook
HOH-ribble

and last but not least...

When going to someone's house, you don't just go to so and so's...you go "up Meery's" "ova Bahb's", or "down Nancy's"...dur, so queaaah..

[clevedark]

Standing in line a few years ago at Stop n Shop in Cohasset. Woman in front of me raving about a great new movie for kids. I'm aware of new movies, and never heard of "A Shock's Tale." After asking her to repeat it a couple of times, she figures it out, rolls her eyes, and enunciates very clearly before turning her back to me, " A Shark's Tale."