"Mayor's Accent Deserts Boston for New York"

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes, January 21, 2006

The Mayor's a Real Noo Yawker Now (3 Letters)

To the Editor:

Re "Mayor's Accent Deserts Boston for New York" (front page, Jan. 16):

At least Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has only two dialects to worry about.
I am a transplant from upstate New York to Long Island to Chicago and back
again, and my dialect has been in constant flux and confuses more New
Yorkers than I care to count.

When I talk about where I grew up, do I elongate my "r's" - as in
"Rochesterrr"? Or do I say it quickly, clipping the "r" precisely at the
end, as Chicagoans do? Or do I turn my "r" into an "a," as Long Islanders
do in "Rochest-a"?

This is one of the beauties of living in "New Yawk": accommodating and
accepting all sorts of dialects and poking some good-natured fun while
doing it.

Brett Elizabeth Blake
Port Washington, N.Y.
Jan. 16, 2006



To the Editor:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg may be losing his Boston accent during his long
residence in New York, but I've been in the Boston-Cambridge area since
arriving for law school in 1964, and I can assure you (as many have
assured me) that I have not lost my Brooklyn accent one whit - even though
I have been married to a Boston-born-and-bred lady for some 30 years.

Maybe it's easier to lose a Boston accent than a Brooklyn accent, eh?

Harvey A. Silverglate
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 16, 2006



To the Editor:

Noo Yawk was a wonderful place to grow up in.

I was sent up the Hudson to a convent school strong on elocution: "Girls,
if you don't say your prayers with your best accent, God won't listen to
you." I spent most of the rest of my life in Europe, speaking Italian and
Greek, but I still proudly say Noo Yawk.

Why should Noo Yawkers allow themselves to be intimidated by Midwesterners
and their ugly "r's" that strain the tongue and jaw?

Maria King Constantinidis
South Yarmouth, Mass.
Jan. 16, 2006



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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/opinion/l21accent.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=print