Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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For Bahston, For Bahston Would you like atonic? Someone asked a freshman at a reception four years ago. No thanks, the freshman replied, puz- zled but gracious. I feel fine. So began an encounter with Boston En- glish, the language that predominates a stu- dents ' experience in the Hub of the Uni- verse. Imported by the first colonists, enriched by waves of (mostly Irish) immigrants, made in- ternationally recognizable during the pres- idency of John F. Kennedy, and tempered by the generations who have spoken it, the Boston Accent has become as recogniz- able as the city ' s scrod and Faneuil Hall. The induence of Boston Speech is reflected in the seaboard dialectics from Maine to Cape Cod, and it extends cis far west as the Con- necticut River. The most notable feature of Boston speech is the r-less quality of many words. Beyond the sterotypical Pahk the cah in the Hahvahdyahd, an expression that most stu- dents probably saw on ashtrays and on post- cards before students enrolled at BC, most encounters with Bostonese came when buying buthday cahds, attending vahsity football games, and leahning about Kahl Mahx in the School of Ahts and Sciences. It is by the r-less quality that we say of the Bostonian, By his speech you will know him. Another phonetic feature often cissociated with Bostonians ' speech is the elongated a, as in your awan ' s glasses. Even the na- tives tend to hear this, however, as a charac- teristic of an aristocratic accent more associ- ated with social dass than with regional un- iqueness, more likely to be heard in the com- mon room at Choate than in the bah in Dah- chesta. Tonic, (meaning soft drink) is Boston ' s most distinguishing trade word. In addition to drinking lots of tonic in Boston, students may also have tried johnnycaltes, or en- joyed eating quoiiogs. And undoubtedly, students have drank a frappe and have had jimmies on their ice cream. With the possible exception of the ex- pression so don ' t 1 (to indicate complete agreement), the language of Boston has no syntactical features to distinguish it from lan- guage in the rest of America. Banners con- taining grammatically flawed expressions like Stomp Them Gophers are not ex- pected to be seen in front of a home-grown Boston cheering section. On the contrary, people typcially associate the quality of Bos- ton ' s grammar with the quality often ascribed to Boston ' s natives — proper. In The Grapes of Wrath, Ivy hits the nail on the head concerning the linguistic state of affairs: Ever ' body says words different. Arkansas folks say ' em different, and Oklahomy folks say em different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts, an ' she said ' em differentest of all. Couin ' hardly make out what she was sayin ' . After only a few months in the city, anyone would be equipped to make out what any lady from Massachusetts is sayin ' I — Professor John F. Savage students soon lose their native accents and dialects upon coming to Boston; soon they ' re they pahking theh cahs and riding the 1. 22 BOSTON

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