"All in the Family" and the New York Accent of Yore

[susangggg]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK all you long time New Yorkers, let's hear it. Lately I've been watching reruns of "All in the Family." Archie and Edith represent the "old guard" and have what I estimate to be exaggerated New York accent that has since faded a bit. But one linguistic habit of theirs I find curious is their propensity to pronounce the "oi" sound as "er" so "toilet" becomes "terlet" and "spoiled" becomes "sperled" and so forth.

haha my mom who grew up in Bed Stuy in the 50s and 60s jokingly uses an exaggeration of that old Brooklyn Italian accent often, she actually will say "I need to use the TERlet" or "you're so SPERled" as a referential joke. And her and her sister whose names both have As in them...forget about it

This used to be more common for some reason, in distinct ethnic enclaves, but things are more diverse now so I think a result is accents are less distinct overall (there are still some places which are exceptions, like Staten Island and Bay Ridge).

[BruceAdama]

We have a close family friend who used to be a secretary in a NYC office building in the 50's, and she said that back then a lot of her female co-workers would talk with a heavy NYC accent, like saying the word "shirt" as "shoyt", or "knock" as "nawk".

It's funny seeing the various accents from back east... my father is from Maine, and they saw "water" like "worter", but a New Yorker would say "wahta".

[1nevets]

My father was born in 1940, grew up in Brownsville and strangely enough my fondest memory of him was being in a gang. He said back in the 50's "every yoot in Brooklyn was in a gang" also, pronouncing toilet, "terlet."

[1nevets]

Bobby Flay has the modern version of the accent? Come to Long Island, when I first heard Chef speak I thought he was from the Island. Makes sense because most Long Islanders are the kids or grandkids of Brooklynites.

[omigawd]

Originally Posted by 1nevets

Bobby Flay has the modern version of the accent? Come to Long Island, when I first heard Chef speak I thought he was from the Island. Makes sense because most Long Islanders are the kids or grandkids of Brooklynites.

Weird, though, the way most LI-ers speak....

saw = sawr as in "I sawr her yesterday

Americer = America as in "I bank at Bank of Americer"


Why do they put an "r" on the end?

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK all you long time New Yorkers, let's hear it. Lately I've been watching reruns of "All in the Family." Archie and Edith represent the "old guard" and have what I estimate to be exaggerated New York accent that has since faded a bit.

Not exaggerated at all. Archie Bunker may have lived on (fictitious) Hauser Street in Queens, but he spoke with a definite Greenpoint accent--known for transposing "er" and "oi."

[nightcrawler]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK all you long time New Yorkers, let's hear it. Lately I've been watching reruns of "All in the Family." Archie and Edith represent the "old guard" and have what I estimate to be exaggerated New York accent that has since faded a bit. But one linguistic habit of theirs I find curious is their propensity to pronounce the "oi" sound as "er" so "toilet" becomes "terlet" and "spoiled" becomes "sperled" and so forth. I have never heard this anywhere else except on "All in the Family." Was this ever a common feature of the New York accent or of some localized version of it? Or was this just some weird affectation they added on the show?

Oh, does anyone else find it strange that other than those two, the character with the thickest New York accent is Meathead even though he's supposedly from Chicago?

yes, it is a true accent. I have living proof relatives including myself that say terlet sorry, but we do.

[nightcrawler]

Originally Posted by bluedog2

You can still hear it in parts of Brooklyn,like Bensonhoist, if you are lucky.Thankfully,it hasn't disappeared completely.
Th UR and the OI are switched.Hurst becomes hoist and oil becomes url.
Language peculiarities are often double faced.In Boston,they drop R's where they are supposed to be and put in R's where they are not supposed to be.

oh yeah, I forgot about the erl,

Like I will tell the waitress I will have vinegar and erl in my salad and she has no clue, I just laugh. LOl

or on the beach we use baby erl and iodine. yup, I am a die hard brooklynite, and i am older than dirt. LOL

[andrew61]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK all you long time New Yorkers, let's hear it. Lately I've been watching reruns of "All in the Family." Archie and Edith represent the "old guard" and have what I estimate to be exaggerated New York accent that has since faded a bit. But one linguistic habit of theirs I find curious is their propensity to pronounce the "oi" sound as "er" so "toilet" becomes "terlet" and "spoiled" becomes "sperled" and so forth. I have never heard this anywhere else except on "All in the Family." Was this ever a common feature of the New York accent or of some localized version of it? Or was this just some weird affectation they added on the show?

Not a longtime New Yorker here -- in fact, I've never lived there -- but IIRC Archie and Edith were originally from New Jersey and so they spoke with what is supposed to be a Jersey accent. I think they moved to Queens so Archie could be closer to his job.

Originally Posted by Drover

Oh, does anyone else find it strange that other than those two, the character with the thickest New York accent is Meathead even though he's supposedly from Chicago?

Yeah, I've noticed that too and found it amusing. It appears television just wasn't very realistic with stuff like that in those days. Look at "Laverne and Shirley", for example -- they all were supposed to be native to Milwaukee and yet they spoke with New York accents.

[Tony Of New York]

YouTube - If These Knishes Could Talk: The Story of the New York Accent