Kennedys

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

Grant Barrett <gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG> inquires as follows:

>>>
On Monday, November 29, 1999, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote:
>We live in Framingham, west of Boston, which has been his home from
>ca. age 2 until heading off to college this fall.

Just this minute I am istening to an interview on NPR with a biographer of Ed
Kennedy. The host quoted somebody else (a satirist or comedian) as saying, "I've
lived in
Framingham, Massachusetts, my entire life and I've never heard anyone who talks
like
the Kennedys."

What of it, Mark?
<<<

I'm thinking about it. ... I don't think I've heard that accent and manner of
speaking (for which my touchstone is memories of JFK) in Framingham either. A
lot of Framinghamites, like us, are from elsewhere: it's a small town with a lot
of people, as my wife puts it, many of whom, like us, are in high-tech
industries or education.

(Framingham is a suburban town west of Boston. Economically and culturally,
though. it's part of an area called MetroWest, comprising a number of
communities between Boston and Worcester that participate in both cities'
regions but also constitute a significant center of activity on their own.)

But even the old townies among our friends do not talk that way. I heard
something more like it when we first came to New England in 1981 and lived in
Brighton for a short time. Brighton is technically part of Boston, and is quite
close to the main part of it.

Which means what? Only that anyone who thinks of "New England" or
"Massachusetts" or "Boston area" as a dialectally uniform bloc is seriously
wrong.

   Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist and Manager of Acoustic Data
         Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Dragon Systems, Inc.
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
                     (speaking for myself)