La versión en español está después de la versión en inglés.
For those of you who don’t speak Newyorquino (what many here call New Yorkers and their accents) at the level of The Kid Brother, what the title actually says is “Doors and more.” Having left New York permanently in 1980, I’ve lost most of the accent I did have. However, I never spoke newyorquino as perfectly as The Kid Brother. I tended to pronounce my “Rs,” “butter” as opposed to “buttah.” I moved around a lot and absorbed accents and dialects like a sponge.
Although, our friend Tynan says I sound like a NYC gangster when I say the word “your” as two syllables. I had never noticed, but he’s right, although my “r” is not silent.
When I was around 8 years old, I wrote the word circula. My mother corrected me, telling me there was an “r” at the end. I asked her to pronounce it and she said “circulah.” I said, “I don’t hear an “r,” and she replied, “It’s silent.” She didn’t understand why I said “butter” the way I did.
My parents had entirely different accents. They were both pure New York City, but my father’s was “street” while my mother’s was refined. He tended to sound like a gangster; she did not. The Kid Brother sounds more like a thug than a gangster. I think there’s a difference. Isn’t there?
All this because I’m sharing images of dawhs (I mean, doors) and other interesting stuff, mostly from the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights. As you’ll see, many front steps were adorned with pumpkins, or as San Geraldo was raised to pronounce it in South Dakota, punkins.
What kind of accent do you have? Is it what you grew up with, entirely different, or a conglomerate of where you’ve been?
The top photo is looking across the East River from Brooklyn Bridge Park to the ferry terminal in Lower Manhattan. Fuhgeddaboudit!
Para quienes no hablan neoyorquino tan bien como El Hermanito, el título dice “Puertas y más”. Tras mudarme de Nueva York definitivamente en 1980, perdí casi todo mi acento. Sin embargo, nunca hablé neoyorquino tan bien como El Hermanito. Solía pronunciar la “r”, “butter””en lugar de “buttah” [mantequilla].
Me moví mucho y absorbí acentos y dialectos como una esponja. Aunque nuestro amigo Tynan dice que sueno como un gánster neoyorquino cuando digo “your” en dos sílabas. Nunca me había dado cuenta, pero tiene razón.
Cuando tenía unos 8 años, escribí la palabra circula (circular). Mi madre me corrigió, diciéndome que tenía una “r” al final. Le pedí que la pronunciara y dijo “circula”. Le dije: “No oigo la ‘r’”, y me respondió: “Es una ‘r’ silenciosa”. Ella no entendió por qué dije “butter” (mantequilla) de esa manera.
Mis padres tenían acentos completamente diferentes. Ambos eran puramente neoyorquinos, pero el de mi padre era más callejero, mientras que el de mi madre era más refinado. Él solía sonar como un gánster; ella no. El Hermanito suena más como un matón que como un gánster. Creo que hay una diferencia, ¿verdad?
Todo esto porque comparto imágenes de puertas y otras cosas interesantes, principalmente de las casas de piedra rojiza de Brooklyn Heights. Como verán, muchas escaleras estaban adornadas con pumpkins (calabazas), o como se pronunciaba San Geraldo en Dakota del Sur, “punkins”.
¿Qué tipo de acento tienes? ¿Es el que tenías cuando creciste, completamente diferente, o una mezcla de tu pasado?
La foto superior muestra el East River desde Brooklyn Bridge Park hasta la terminal del ferry en el Bajo Manhattan. Como dicen en Nueva York, fuhgeddaboudit. (Que en realidad es “forget about it”; es decir, “olvídalo”.)
Mitchell, the brownstone doorstep’s are beautiful! I love all the pumpkins. I guess I have a “Canadian “ accent. As a kid we vacationed in New Hampshire every year. People came from all over New England to vacation there. All the accents were so fascinating. And we Canadians were told we had such accents. 😆We live in Eastern Ontario now. Down in the county (Prince Edward County) you can still come across an older person with a County accent. To me it sounds like a Nova Scotia accent. Have a good day.❤️
Robin:
I always recognize Canadian accents but, although I can hear differences, I don’t know one from another.
I love accents and I love listening to the different way people say and pronounce things. I have no idea what type of accent I do have, I guess it might be a mixture of things. I grew up in way upstate NY, and I think there are some words that have a Canadian slant to them. Living in Virginia for most of my adult life, I know I have added some southern words to my vocabulary like “y’all”. My kids say that my sister and I have similar accents and they always comment on how we say the word “milk.”
Michael:
Now I want to hear you say “milk.” Does it sound a bit like “melk”? I had friends from way upstate who said it like that. My freshman roommate was from Willsboro. I think even friends from Rochester pronounced it a bit like melk.
Yes, it does sound like “melk!”
Michael,
I love it!
All those steps up to the front door, gah. I guess I’m permanently affected by carrying a little boy and groceries!
I grew up in the northern UK, have lived in NJ most of my adult life. American born friends love my “British” accent, Brits say I’m such a Yank! I had to slow down my speech to be understood, and change the rhythm of sentences, same reason, when teaching. But word pronunciation, I dunno, y’all!
Boud:
It’s funny. I never even thought about all those steps. It was such a normal look. The Victorians in San Francisco, too. My sister lived in England for 6 months and already sounded English to us.
I suppose I have a “Canadian” accent, whatever the hell that is. My voice sounds unaccented to my own ear, of course. The only time I’ve strived to change my accent is while speaking French, so that I don’t have such an obvious “English” accent. And here there’s two choices about which kind of French accent to try to attain — Quebec accent or French-from-France accent. I think my French is a mixture.
The Canadian accent is difficult to detect, eh…
Debra:
Although my French sucks, I can hear the difference between Canadian French and France French.
LOVE these brownstone entries!!
Do I have an accent? I suppose I do……probably what would be called a ‘Nova Scotian’ one. Now, Ron on the other hand has a distinctly ‘Valley’ accent……..from the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. I could go on about other parts of NS. Suffice it to say that one can tell from which part of the province a person comes.
Makes sense that your accent is a mix of all of your experiences around the world. We have a friend who lives in the Bronx. It is always a treat to be speaking with her.
Jim:
Ron must have shared audio of himself at some time because I distinctly remember his accent and his use of “eh.” And, although, I can recognize differences in Canadian accents, I couldn’t tell you where one is from.
Having lived in five states, my accent is middle America, and morphs based on where I am. I can speak fluent southerner, or cold midwesterner, a little bit of appalachian. The kick plate on one of the doors is shiny enough to catch your reflection, either it is new, or someone has a great housekeeper.
David:
I think you hear your own accent correctly. I’ve never caught the Southern in you.
As someone graced by God to be born with the preferred broad midlands American accent (Cleveland, doncha know) I always find other (inferior) accents interesting. I too pick up bits of accent unconsciously. When I went to visit my family after only a semester at Duke, mom accused me of having a southern accent. (Weird, because Duke is filled with people from New Jersey.) Fun fact: many a year ago, Case Western University in Cleveland required freshman with an (inferior) accent to take a special speech course to train them to speak in the preferred accent.
wickedhamster:
I remember those courses for business people to lose their southern accents. I went to school in wester New York State. After my first six months, I had picked up quite a Rochester accent. I didn’t even like the accent. SG claims he grew up where they spoke pure American English, like newscasters. I don’t think newscasters said punkin.
Like Michael, I love hearing different accents. Some of the midwestern ones do grate on me and I’m not sure why. I often get asked where I’m from because I don’t sound entirely southern, I guess. Or, North Floridian. Whatever. I know that I am an unconscious accent-mimicker of whoever I’m speaking to. This can get weird. When I went to University of Denver, I discovered that most of the kids there were from New York (Long Island, mostly) and their accents were quite pronounced. I got mercilessly teased and asked questions about whether or not I liked fried chicken and watermelon. I am not kidding you. I soon adopted their accent and it took me awhile to settle back into my southern one when I moved back here. No wonder my accent is sometimes hard to identify.
That blue door steals my heart.
Ms. Moon
Ms. Moon:
I, too, unconsciously imitate the accents I hear. There was a time here when I found myself speaking English with a Spanish accent. I still do purposely pronounce English words in a Spanish accent so people know what I’m talking about. Even my name, “Mee-TCHELL ESCOTT BLOKE” There’s no schwa sound in Spanish.
Texas twang here though not as pronounced as it was when young. Many one syllable words are stretched out into two like dime pronounced di-ime. Thang instead of thing. When I went to Chicago one year for school I was in the pottery studio and we were getting a tour from the instructor and I noticed a slip mold perched precariously on the edge of a counter and the edge of a tall stool. That thang’s fixin’ to fall (stretching out the fall), I told the instructor. He looked at me and said, where are you from? Also slow speech. I went to a international symposium in Scotland one summer and one of the participants was from France. She spoke english as well but told me she liked talking to me the best because I spoke slow enough for her to understand. Shoot, even I have a hard time understanding fast talkers. My ears don’t hear that fast.
ellen abbott:
I worked closely with a woman from Dallas who refused to give up one bit of her native accent. It was like poetry at times.“I’m on that like a duck on a junebug.” Had a good friend from Post, Texas when we lived in San Diego. It was the first time I heard the expression “fixin’ to.” We were at the San Diego Wild Animal Park wandering the gardens. He looked at a cactus and said “Ooh wee, this one’s fixin’ ta bloom.” He was a theater professor who spoke nothing like that anymore. It just slipped out.
Thanks for the translation since I had no idea what your title said! I have a (US) southern accent, but as anyone from the south knows, that can vary greatly by region.
I love all those doorways!
Kelly:
I can hear differences in Southern accents but couldn’t tell you where individual accents come from. I remember the actors in Steel Magnolias talking about where their particular accents came from for the movie.
There’s an old Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong song about the different pronunciations of words (Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off). I grew up speaking Ebonics where “ed” wasn’t at the end of words … like killed was spoken as kilt, spilled was spilt. As those around me spoke that same Ghetto English, I did not realize I was not speaking proper English until I met/married my ex in my 20’s, was emersed in a different level of culture. Though I no longer speak Ebonics, because my mom, aunt, uncles were all from the South, I must have a bit of a dialect because once, when in the market, I asked the employee where the “scallions” were and he asked if I was from the South saying those not from the South refer to them as “green onions”; and the way I pronounce the fish “Salmon” as “Sallman” seems to amuse others.
Shirley:
I LOVE that song. It’s by George and Ira Gershwin and was first performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We also call them scallions!
Nah, northerners, west coasters say scallion as well. Love these doors! Brownstones are great. Olivia
Olivia:
Yes, we say scallions although we know they’re the same as green onions. I love brownstones.
Top photo looks bloody cold
finlaygray:
Had you been there, you probably would have said it was a lovely day. 40F/5C. It WAS bloody cold!
Accents are a constantly fascinating thing. I, my sister and my mother were all brought up in Wales (admittedly not “Welsh Wales”, merely the southeast corner, bordering on England), and none of us have lived there for decades (Hils and I in London, mother in Portsmouth) – but we all retain (to some level or another) a recognisably Welsh lilt in the way we speak. Yet to people still residing in Wales, we sound English…
As for the photos – quite startling to see Rocket Raccoon immortalised above that door arch! 😄
I wonder what becomes of those pumpkins once Hallowe’en is over? Those properties don’t look the type of place that have abundant back gardens with compost heaps. Jx
Jon:
I know in some places, the towns and cities collect the pumpkins for composting. Maybe others make a lot of pumpkin pie. And, yes, that does look like Rocket Raccoon. There was a matching one next door. I love hearing Welsh spoken, although I have no clue what’s being said. I do like the lilt in the English spoken by people from Wales. There’s something musical about it.
Your brownstone photos are great — nothing says New York to me more than those iconic stoops!
I assume I have a “Canadian” accent too, though mine is much easier on the ears than a Newfoundland trill. Many years ago, I shared an elevator with an elegantly dressed African lady who asked me if I was from London. “London, Ontario?” I replied and she said, “No, London in England! You speak beautifully”… I was flattered at the time, but now I wonder if she meant posh or East End docker, LOL!
Tundra Bunny:
The first time I was able to consistently hear a Newfoundland accent was in the play and movie “Come From Away.” Somehow, I don’t think the woman would have used the word “beautifully” if you sounded like a docker. Then again, I’ve known Americans who’ve thought Cockney and Eastenders sounded posh.
Ohhhh, I love these! And, that set of door handles at the end…ohhhhhh. Yummm 🙂
When I moved to St. Louis (at age 16) from New Jersey, EVERYBODY I met asked me why I didn’t SOUND like I was from New Jersey. I kept telling them, “No one does, unless they’re from Jersey City or Bayonne.” But.. when I go back now, I hear plenty of NJ accent wherever I go… lots of “sauwsss” (for sauce), etc. My parents were from New England (but they didn’t have a Boston or Cape Cod type accent), so we girls didn’t pick up any kind of strong accent. (The comment from your mother that the r in circular is silent, is hilarious 🙂 )
Judy C:
I have cousins who grew up near Princeton and they do have a distinct Jersey accent that’s nothing like Tony Soprano’s. The “r” in butter was silent too. I cracked up when I later understood the accent.
One client at work told me he detected a Southern accent from me. Never heard that from anyone else. I’m considered a yankee in Florida. Another client said I sounded Canadian. My first supervisor said I had a mid-Atlantic accent, which is usually considered an affectation, so I didn’t care for that. When we moved from our tiny Kansas town to the big city of Topeka, other kids asked why I talked so weird. I said wash, not warsh, and used terms they didn’t recognize. I’m sure that was because my parents weren’t Kansas natives (they were from Minnesota and North Dakota). I don’t know if I have a particular accent now. I hate the sound of my own voice when I have to listen to a recording of it. In fact, I can’t stand much of anything about myself.
Love,
Janie
janiejunebug:
My best friend in Boston (who hadn’t traveled much at that point… he was 27) said that SG, being from the South had an obvious southern accent. I said, “He’s from South DAKOTA.” And he said, “So?” as if I proved his point. I, too, hate hearing myself and can’t stand much of anything about myself most of the time either. Birds of a feather.
Let’s drink to hating ourselves. Cheers!
Janiejunebug,
For the record, I think you’re fascinating, smart, funny, and you have your heart in the right place! If I drank, I’d drink to that!
Aw, I love ya, handsome.
janiejunebug:
Thanks, beautiful!
When I’m not mumbling or stammering–which is 90% of the time–I have a Don Pardo accent.
Kirk:
All I can imagine is Art Fleming trotting onto stage saying “Thank you my friends! Thank you Don Pardo!”
Now New York doors to add to your Spain collection.
Mt father, born and raised in California, said “wooder” for water and no one knows why; he was the only one in the family to do so.
Being born in Mississippi, you’d think I’d have a Southern accent, but we left before I could talk so it didn’t stick. I don’t know that I have an accent–is Californian an accent? I have had several people in Camden ask where I’m from and I always say I’ve lived in South Carolina my whole life and when they say I don’t sound like I’m from here I say “that’s because I graduated the fifth grade.”
Oy the looks!
Bob,
Wooder? I’ve never heard that! Unless it’s a Valley Girl accent, I think a California generic accent is hard to recognize or define. You live dangerously. Of course, they haven’t been smart enough to get catch the sarcasm.
Love the “punkins” and those door handles in the last photo are quite dramatic!
I was once told that my accent is “midwestern standard,” or something like that, which basically means no accent to speak of. Occasionally I let some southern creep in there.
Steve:
I certainly didn’t notice any Southern and would probably would have guessed midwestern. I think my NYC inflections still come through loud and clear.