"All in the Family" and the New York Accent of Yore (Boston: live, food)

[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?

[Viralmd]

These inflections used to be much more common. I heard them all the time growing up.

Edited to add: this was all over NYC in those days - except in my family, because my family almost all spoke with a German accent, having just arrived on these shores in the '40s.

[TANaples]

Neither my parents nor I ever said any of those words. I remember my Grandma sometimes speaking like that but she was born in 1900 and was a first generation American.

[SINY2NC]

I have found that people from Brooklyn used to talk like that when I was growing up! And on Staten Island too. I lived in Queens for 21 years and NEVR heard anyone there say turlet or sperled! I LOVE "ALL IN THE FAMILY".

[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.

[clevedark]

My nana talked like that. She spent some of her formative years in Coney Island back in gosh, the 30s I guess.... She also liked to drink pickle juice.

I miss her.

[omigawd]

Absolutely! Those accents are not fake by any means.... you can still find some old-time NY-ers (older people) who still talk like that. They are far and few between but it's very nostalgic to hear them talk (or tawk)

[Drover]

Thanks all for your input.

Archie is just off the hook.

[DAS]

I have a seventy something year old colleague that speaks exactly like Archie Bunker. He was born and raised in Bensonhurst.

I would say that Bobby Flay, chef on The Food Network has a modern version of this accent.

[dman72]

There are people in NY who put R's where a's should be.

For example: Bovine radio commentator Mike Francessa can't even pronounce his own name..he pronounces it "Fran-cess-ER"