I’m not buying it.
A New York accent and a Brooklyn accent are two different things.
My 83 year-old uncle lives in Florida. He grew up in Brooklyn, and in his younger days he had a Brooklyn accent.....now he has a classic New York accent, the accent heard in Manhattan and some of the other burroughs, as well as Long Island. I myself grew up on Long Island, and I’ve been told I still have traces of a New York accent, even though I haven’t lived in the New York area since 1974.
Years ago, New Yorkers who had the classic Brooklyn accent pronounced “oil” as “earl” and Thirty-Third Street would be pronounced as “totie-turd” street. That classic Brooklyn accent may be disappearing, but the other New York accent is alive and well. I have a number of relatives on Long Island and most of them have thick New York accents.....accents so thick you could them with a knife.
I live in Maine now and I can always tell when someone visiting here in the summer is from New York, although some New Yorkers have more obvious accents than others. There is also such as thing as a Maine accent, although I’ll have to say it’s more prevalent among elderly and middle-aged Mainers than the teenagers....I think they pick it up as they grow older. Also, a Boston accent is different than a Maine accent.
Then there’s regional sayings....in Maine, if you ask directions of a local, someone might say. “You can’t get there from here.” If you were not born in Maine, you are said to be “from away.”
Also, if a New Yorker trips while walking down the street carrying a bag of groceries, he might say, “Son of a bitch!”
In Maine, (and Massachusetts), he would yell, “Son of a whore!” LOL!
I think the point is that regional accents are disappearing among the younger generation, not among people who grew up with them. I travel a fair amount to different parts of the country and I have noticed this to be the case everywhere, not just in New York.
Interestingly, I go to Spain a lot, and I have noticed that the extreme regional accents are also being modified there and that more and more young people speak a sort of “standard Castillian” that they have obviously absorbed from TV. So it’s a generalized phenomenon worldwide, I suspect.
I grew up in the South and moved North. I now sound like I’m from the North, and pretty much only I can hear the occasional Southern accent and idiom in my speech. When I go back down south, there’s a definite regional accent, cadence, flow and idiom that I re-adopt almost immediately, especially with those who don’t know me well, so that I’m not so obviously an outsider. Even at that, my casual clothing, while almost declasse’ in the North, is considered “dressed up” city boy clothing down there. Funny how those regional things are so strong.
I was born in Brooklyn and also grew up on Long island. I’ll admit that I do have an accent but it’s not Brooklynese. What drives me crazy is when I tell people that I’m originally from Long island they always say Long G-island? My kids have all grown up in MA. and have no accent of any kind and neither do their friends.
(going around the email chains)
A teacher in a Detroit kindergarten class asked the kids what kind of sound a pig makes.
Little Tyrone stood up and yelled:
“FREEZE, MUTHAF**KA!!”
I guess there aren’t many farms in Detroit .
I once visited my brother in British Colombia. Everyone was so nice. Or so I thought. Someone said to me, "I hear everyone is talking to you to hear your accent. They think you sound like Rhoda (Valerie Harper's show)".
Thank God hubby wasn't turned off. He's from Batavia, NY and always talks about "pop" instead of the correct "soda". LOL