What do you mean, Eliza Dushku is only OK. She's FROM Boston!
The problem with the Boston accent is that there ain't no such thing. As noted above, there are Boston accents, plural, a whole wicked lot of 'em.
Later this month, my enormous family will get together. My brothers speak Summuhville. I speak Barny. (Or as they put it, Baahney.) Charlestown is different, and Southie even more so.
Accents don't just mark where you're from, they mark social status. My brothers are blue-collar, I'm white-collar professional. Too many actors try for broad blue-collar accent when they're playing the role of educated people. Or worse, they go for the JFK Boston Brahmin accent that William Daniels had down so well, an accent that no longer exists in the wild.
Back seventy years ago, my aunts, daughters of a Somerville postman whose father had come over from Ireland as a young man, were given elocution lessons. One does not wish to sound vulgar, now does one?
no subject
The problem with the Boston accent is that there ain't no such thing. As noted above, there are Boston accents, plural, a whole wicked lot of 'em.
Later this month, my enormous family will get together. My brothers speak Summuhville. I speak Barny. (Or as they put it, Baahney.) Charlestown is different, and Southie even more so.
Accents don't just mark where you're from, they mark social status. My brothers are blue-collar, I'm white-collar professional. Too many actors try for broad blue-collar accent when they're playing the role of educated people. Or worse, they go for the JFK Boston Brahmin accent that William Daniels had down so well, an accent that no longer exists in the wild.
Back seventy years ago, my aunts, daughters of a Somerville postman whose father had come over from Ireland as a young man, were given elocution lessons. One does not wish to sound vulgar, now does one?