Comments on: Posh Bostonians

By: David in NY

David in NY — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:18:41 +0000

Could someone with FDR’s accent be elected President today?

And am I wrong that I’ve noticed a certain “folksy” edge to Obama’s speech I don’t remember from the primaries? (And hasn’t Bush’s speech gotten folksier and folksier throughout his presidency? He sounds like a red-dirt farmer these days, even when he’s wearing a tux.)

By: Jim Livesey

Jim Livesey — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:55:05 +0000

The most extreme version of the Boston Brahmin accent was exhibited by the lately deceased and sadly missed Donald Fleming (originally of Ohio). A graduate student once summoned up the courage to ask him about the way he spoke and he replied “pure affectation dear boy”.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:19:22 +0000

I heard a nice interview with Martin Scorsese on the making of Gangs of New York. He claims to have put a lot of work into researching accents of the period, and turned up some interesting info: for example, upper-class New York types would be sure to pronounce ‘pearls on the girls’ rather more like we think working-class Noo Yoikers do today (or is this also slipping away?) ‘Poi-als on the goi-als’

I find this very plausible. I think as time goes by, accents are all becoming standardised. Apparantly, even the Queen’s English (I mean Elizabeth’s) has not been immune – I read a report a while ago in which experts had alalysed her speech and concluded that she had been watching too many Australian soap operas.

Here in Ireland, everybody under 15 years old sounds American. I’m always amazed listening to recordings of Joyce or Shaw or Yeats – those accents slipping ever further back into antiquity.

I also remember recently hearing about a Sheakespeare production in which linguists and scholars had cobbled together an approximation of what they imagined Shakespeare’s English might have sounded like. I expect it was wonderfully broad.

By: Ray Davis

Ray Davis — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:36:50 +0000

“You’re giving me the Bryn Mawr accent.” – Spencer Tracy to Katherine Hepburn, Adam’s Rib

By: jj

jj — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:59:39 +0000

Professor Frederick Clifton Packard:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=103637

By: jj

jj — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:43:13 +0000

Interesting coincidence. Went out to the parking lot here off 128, hopped in my car and turned on the radio. This was on:

http://www.radioboston.org/index.php/2008/07/14/got-an-accent-3.html

Answers all your questions about the Boston accent, including the Brahmans. Peter Gomes is even mentioned, who apparently had the same elocution coach as JFK…

By: jj

jj — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:05:57 +0000

Combine an Eastern-seaboard accent with an educated person’s articulation, and you get the way my grandparents and their friends sound.

Come to think of it, it’s a similar thing with the older people in my family. The New England accent is nasally to begin with. Add educated e-nun-ciation (the extreme example would be Charles Winchester III from MASH), and you get the accent. My older relatives didn’t sound like Charles Winchester, but if you exaggerate and add some affectation, you can see it.

I remember seeing the movie Spitfire Grill a few years ago, set somewhat close to where I grew up, and the accents were really bad. They would change from second to second: Southern, English, Scottish, Irish. Here’s a clip:

http://video.tvguide.com/ID/820713

No one in the cast had it right. Maybe 40’s Hollywood imitations of Northeast accents were bad as well…?

By: derek

derek — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:11:17 +0000

Loyd Grossman. That is all.

I heard a BBC radio documentary where they went to Loyd Grossman’s home neighbourhood, and I was expecting the Planet Of The Loyds, but actually they sounded like normal Americans (for Northeastern values of “normal American”). Grossman himself seems to be a one-off.

By: ajay

ajay — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:47:31 +0000

It also helps to open one nostril a little wider than the other.

Can anyone really do this? Is this even physiologically possible?

By: epist

epist — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:08:54 +0000

Thurston Howell III?

By: dr

dr — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:34:58 +0000

Back in Oklahoma the way we used to imitate an upperclass New England accent was to talk slowly and in round tones while keeping our teeth held toghether. It also helps to open one nostril a little wider than the other.

By: josh

josh — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:59:34 +0000

My impression—from taped interviews of older Boston Brahmins (born c. 1910)—is that they did sound much like Bette Davis.
It is claimed by some that Peter Gomes’s wonderfully melifluous take on the mid-Atlantic accent is an affectation; but this may be unjust and untrue.

By: John I

John I — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:51:52 +0000

It still exists, and not just among the old. There is a branch of my family that continues to use a sort of high blue blood New England accent that is not far removed from FDR et al. I have a cousin who is a radio reporter and is always asked to round off her accent to sound more “American.” And my grandmother, who was a Bryn Mawr girl ca 1918, sounded a lot like Kate Hepburn. Having been raised in Maryland, I sound more like David Simon…

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:50:15 +0000

@6 Dave – yes, I have, and many of her other performances too. None of them came close to Blanchett’s bizarre phonetics. Maybe it’s my ears, not her vocals . . .

By: andyoufalldown

andyoufalldown — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:37:35 +0000

This is definitely how people used to sound. Combine an Eastern-seaboard accent with an educated person’s articulation, and you get the way my grandparents and their friends sound. What you want is someone who is quite old, born in New England or New York, and went to college. This is the best I could find online, I think he’s in his 60s: http://www.charlierose.com/guests/peter-gomes