• There's More Than One Boston Accent

  • May 2 2025
  • Duración: 4 m
  • Podcast

There's More Than One Boston Accent

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  • In this story, there’s more than one Boston accent. I’m Joanne Greene.
    For many, if not most of you, the words “merry”, “marry” and “Mary” are all pronounced the same way. Merry, merry, merry. But for me, born and raised just outside of Boston, they are three distinct words…Listen closely.
    “Merry” is generally associated with Christmas, as in MERRY Christmas.
    “Marry” is what happens at a wedding. She will MARRY her partner.
    And “Mary” is a name. Mary J Blige…Mary Oliver…Mary Quite Contrary.
    There’s nothing that gives me the heeby jeebies more than someone trying and failing to deliver an authentic Boston accent. And people do it all the time, in person and – worse – in movies.
    Insert example of bad Boston accent
    It’s a litmus test. Actors can master a British accent, a southern drawl, or Brooklyn speak with minimal effort but the real sound of any number of Boston accents must be and rarely is right on the money. Either the person is from Boston, has at least lived in Boston, or they haven’t. Case closed. Mark Wahlberg , Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, …..these actors can pull it off, precisely because they were, at one pivotal, formative time in their lives, proper Bostonians.
    Boston accents can be funny…or erudite…They can make one sound as dumb as rocks or as smaaaht as a very smaaat Hahvad educated cah.
    Insert excerpt of Smaht Cah commercial
    The subtleties are worth noting.
    Take the word horse, for example, HORSE.
    It’s “HAHSS”, if you come from, say, most of Boston proper
    In Southie, South Boston to the uninitiated, it might sound more like “HAWSS”
    Where I grew up, in Brookline, the mounted police (mounties, of course) rode a “HOOAS”.
    One common thread in all Boston accents is the dropping of the “r” sound…but don’t get too carried away with this rule as Bostonians also add an “r” sound, when it’s not there, to separate two vowels. For instance, “Rayna and Bob” in a standard American accent becomes “RayneranBob” in the mouth of a Bostonian. The nuances abound, which is why the accent is so tough to get right.
    When I first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and applied for an on-air job in radio, I was told that I had to lose the regionalism. What regionalism I questioned? Californians often mistook me for a New Yorker, but I assured them that what they were picking up was East Coast, possibly Jewish, energy and speech patterns. I went to a voice coach and worked on it, which is why I eventually did get hired to speak on the radio and why, today, only the most sophisticated accent detectors can pin me down as a gal from Brookline.
    I share all of this in the hopes of saving you the trouble, and avoiding the inevitable humiliation, of trying & failing to imitate a Boston accent. Maybe, just maybe, you can say “pahk the cah in Hahvad yad” but that’s it. Promise?

    Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
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