I came here determined to learn the Boston accent. Unlike many people who believe it obnoxious, I find it kind of charming, fun, and well, attractive. Or perhaps it’s been made attractive/seductive/exotic, even, by characters in Boston-based movies, the most mainstream of which are usually tied to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Each movie uses, more or less, the same heavy accent.
Embarrassingly, I sorta thought that most everyone would speak like that. Thanks, Ben and Matt, for making me look like a fool.
It didn’t take me long to learn that there are a variety of accents here, subtleties based on things like neighborhood, block, background, and family as well as pronunciation, inflection, and tone. I am simultaneously sorry and not to report that not every Boston accent resurrects dialogue from The Departed, though I should mention that the drunken boys at Fenway certainly did.
I like the accents here, and it’s fascinating to be in a classroom with a handful of Boston students who don’t sound exactly alike. J’s accent is thick and sometimes slurred, clos er to the representation circulating in mainstream media, and N seems incapable of pronouncing the “ing” sound. “Learning” is “learnuhn,” and “discussing” (a word that she frequently uses in the classroom) is “discussuhn.”
The point is, I have yet to hear the term “chowdahead” even once.
But I’m still working on my accent.
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