mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regional Dialects Last night on the way home from work, Pete and I began discussing regional accents within the US. Coming from Brooklyn, NY, I am more qualified to debate poor articulation than your average bear. I didn't know that it was it was possible to use "r" on the end of a word till I was roughly six years of age . "Water" was frequently pronounced "Wata" and "daughter" was simply "dauwtah." I botched other faves too, like "chocolate" was simply "choclit" and "coffee" was "cauwfee." Luckily, my father stepped in early and put and end to my mispronunciations, stating clearly that he didn't wish to live with a character from the Godfather series. Unfortunately, by that point in time, my aunt had taught me the entire spiel Marlon Brando does in the original flick, you know, the "you come to me on this the day of my goddaughters wedding......" I actually learned that monologue when I was just three. Oh the talent! It's a wonder I'm not a big star now. Anyway, I lost any trace of accent early on before it could really take. I occasionally slip up (particularly when I'm intoxicated or about to rumble - neither are common occurrences these days) but it's very rare. My mother has the NY twang but frankly, she cultivated in the last few years. After leaving the private sector to take a job with the gob-ment, mom gave up on enunciation and also began cursing like a truck driver. I think she decided to portray this image after watching a few too many episodes of the Sopranos. It's interesting if nothing else. My mother, Anna Bag-a-donuts. My sister, who is currently living in Philadelphia, seems to have also been schooled in the proper way to pronounce words. She has a certain cadence to her speech but it isn't distinctive of any particular region. Ithink it mostly comes from years of orthodontial work. Now, my dear husband, hails from the land of the "wicked retarded" - Boston. Although the New York accent makes the hairs on my neck stand up, the Boston accent brings on feelings of extreme nausea. Despite living there for four years, I never grew accustomed to the dialect. Luckily, Pete left his drawl behind a decade or two ago but any time a family member calls him and they talk for more than five minutes, I have to leave the room. He slips with words like "Kaahh" (as in automobile) and anything containing an "a." In his defense, Pete has never used "pissah" seriously in a sentence nor "digga" (as in "to take a digga" or to the rest of us non-New Englanders, "to fall"). Sadly, he does say "bang in' a U-ey" as in "to make a U-turn." But realistically, Pete's a pretty intelligent sounding man and his voice doesn't turn my stomach. This is a good thing to have in a spouse. You may remember last November when the Monsters-In-Law visited. If you don't, it's documented here and here. Ahh, "Memories, like the corners of my mind....." Sing along now. Anyway, my in-laws have unbearably strong accents despite having lived outside of Boston for the better part of the last two decades. Like most people who speak with a regional dialect, they have no idea that they are actually doing it. As a matter of fact, they actually mock other people who have the same accent. "That guy has a wicked frick'n pissa accent and he lives in Mehfuh (Medford, MA. - a city next to Sommaville or Slummaville)." One evening during their visit, we asked Judy and Jiri to come by and have dinner with the four of us. This was mainly a way to share the pain and to have witnesses should anyone ever think I was exaggerating the monsters behaviors. So we're all sitting down to dinner, a dinner I slaved over for hours with the knowledge that FIL would still find something to bitch about (but that story has been told), when Judy decides to try and engage MIL in some small talk. Judy asks about my nieces and nephews knowing full well that MIL loves to talk about her grandmotherly ways. "Well," says MIL. "E* is five now and she just adores her Bobbies." "What is a Bobbie," asks dear, sweet Judy. Pete and I nearly fell over with laughter. "A Bar-bie," Pete choked between his guffaws. "As in a Barbie doll." After spending a whole week listening to words like "skeeza" (girl with a bad reputation) or "cawna" (where two streets meet) and not being able to correct the pronunciation it was so refreshing to have someone outside the situation quite innocently point out the discrepancy. Unfortunately, my in-laws seemed to think it was more Judy's issue than theirs. MIL later commented that she "couldn't believe Judy never had Bobbies growing up." I tried to explain that I was certain that Judy had had "Barbies" but that it was just difficult to understand what she was talking about at times. MIL just poo-pooed the idea that she was incomprehensible and said Judy was "quayuh" - whatever that means. As an aside, I had a fantastic time last night with the lovely Dishery. In one of our conversations, we agreed to cut ourselves a little slack at least for the summer. Summers are too short to focus on the difficult and pressing issues such as "what am I going to do with my life." If I start whining about "the future" I'm going to count on the Dish to set me straight. And in Dish-like fashion, I'm going to give you a little quote: "I believe there comes a time when you just have to pick a lane and stay in it." - Dishery I say that time is Autumn. 11:45 a.m. - 2003-05-01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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