Dropping the R’s and Raising the Bar: A Deep Dive into the Boston Accent

How’d We Get Here?

Our accent, part of the broader lingo called Eastern New England English, has got deep roots, going all the way back to the first English folks who settled in Boston. They came from East Anglia and Southeast England, and they brought their dialects with ’em. Over the centuries, we’ve made it our own, but there’s still a touch of the old country in there.

What’s So Special About How We Talk?

One thing everyone notices is our “r’s” — or, more accurately, our lack of ’em. This non-rhotic quirk means that a word like “car” sounds more like “cah” when we say it. But don’t get us wrong, we haven’t completely kicked the ‘r’ to the curb. When a word ending with an ‘r’ is followed by a word starting with a vowel, we roll out the red carpet for the ‘r’ — that’s what they call ‘linking R.’

And then there’s the ‘broad a.’ We stretch out our ‘a’ sounds in words like “bath” and “half” until they sound more like the ‘a’ in “father.”

Don’t forget our unique local lingo. For example, we say “frappe” (pronounced “frap”) when we mean a milkshake, and we’ve adopted “wicked” as an all-purpose word for “really” or “very.”

It’s Not All the Same

Now, don’t go thinking every Bostonian sounds exactly the same. You’ll hear a different shade of the accent in different neighborhoods, among different age groups, and between the working-class and more well-to-do folks. And our accent is a living, changing thing — some young Bostonians are starting to pronounce their ‘r’s more often, likely thanks to the influence of all those TV shows and movies that don’t sound anything like us.

What It Means To Us

Our accent isn’t just about how we pronounce our words. It’s a part of who we are, a link to our history, and a point of pride. The moment we open our mouths, people know we’re from Boston.

Hollywood loves to feature our accent in movies and TV shows. Sometimes they get it wrong, making us sound like caricatures, but that doesn’t diminish the genuine Boston accent’s charm.

So, There You Have It

There’s more to the Boston accent than dropping ‘r’s and saying “wicked.” It’s part of what makes us, well, us. Our accent tells a story — a story of heritage and cultural distinctiveness.