Boston Accent

Boston Accent

The Boston dialect is the dialect characteristic of English spoken in the city of Boston and much of eastern Massachusetts. Sociolinguists frequently group these regions with Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut to form the Eastern New England dialect region.

The best-known features of the Boston accent are non-rhoticity and broad A. It is most prominent in often traditionally Irish or Italian Boston neighborhoods and surrounding cities and towns.

Read more about Boston Accent:  Phonological Characteristics, Non-rhoticity Elsewhere in The New England Area, Use in Media, Well-known Speakers Of/with The Boston Accent, Lexicon

Famous quotes containing the words boston and/or accent:

    In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.
    M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)

    An accent mark, perhaps, instead of a whole western accent—a point of punctuation rather than a uniform twang. That is how it should be worn: as a quiet point of character reference, an apt phrase of sartorial allusion—macho, sotto voce.
    Phil Patton (b. 1953)