Accenting Life

 Good day readers and followers,

Yes, once again I've let a few months pass between posts.  Covid months- a pandemic draw.  Well here in Questionopololis we are now unmasked.  The pandemic is almost past.  I wasn't vacillating about getting vaccinated.  Nope, stepped right up as soon as those in option12-J or whatever, when eligible, and let them stick me both times.  Done over a month ago!  I feel free- I hope you do too.  What's been going on?  Thanks for asking.  I'm presenting this mask free. 

As many of you know my home town of Questionopolis is a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia.  Yes, Philly.  Truth be told I am a Philadelphian -and with great pride, even though I only lived there for about 20% of my life.  This brings me to a story about a show about a fictitious town.  Former local writer-producer Martin Inglesby's great mini-series Mare of Easttown just wrapped up its run on TV.  Captivating, exciting murder- mystery that was so much more with deep character development.  The show was set in Delaware County or in local parlance, Delco.  

Martin grew up locally in the hamlet of Berwyn, part of Tredyfferin-Easttown (T/E) School District.  Easttown is actually in the adjacent Chester County, not Delco. Berwyn is in the Easstown portion of T/E.  When I was a teen I dated a very tall girl from Berwyn.  It is not as gritty nor extraordinarily blue collar as it's cinematic fictional town or main character- Detective Mare Sheehan.  The name was used because it fit, just like Questionopolis for Answerman.  To many locals, irrespective of what county either loved the show and all the local places it presented or despised the fact that for those outside the area think Delco is only a depressing place full distressed and depressed people.  Further, there was another that couldn't let go of the fact that the real Easttown is an upscale area in Chester County.  I'm a writer, I get why he used the name and the backdrop.

The backdrop of truly gritty places in Delco- Marcus Hook, Chester, Aston.  Also used were onetime steel towns in Chester County, Coatesville and Phoenixville.  I've had friends in or from all of them.  As you move around the way people speak is noticeably different.  Years ago, I didn't realize that I had a very specific accent from NE Philly until my parents moved us out to "the country" when I was 9.  We moved to the far reaches of Chester County where there were only nine houses on the entire road! A road- it wasn't even a street. I could look across the street in my Philly neighborhood and see more than 9 houses!  The locals all talked weird.  They said we did.  What the heck was "WaaaH-Ter?" I asked one kid. He said its what comes out of the faucet. Oh, water! "Yo, you're mispronouncing it!  "That's "wooder" like with a "D."  There's only one "A,"  no "H" and definitely not a hard "T" sound I told him...." and we were the ones with the weird accent.  PFT!

Delco has it's own accent- one that I noticed years ago when I was in college.  Much was made about how the actors/actresses had to adopt and adapt it.  Heck, most of the actors weren't even from the states!  It is very much like a Philly accent but as local writer Jim Adair stated, "it's just a little...off."  Adair moved from one Philly neighborhood to Delco at age 13.  He knows. The O's are rounded, home is pronounced "hewm."  If a Delco friend wants to ask you to see a show it's "Sew, do want to go to the shoew?"

My daughters, who grew up strictly in the suburbs still make fun of some very Philly specific words that I pronounce.  I take it with a sense of humor...because that is one of the words.  If you're from my part of Philly its "Yoo-merr."  We were actually taught by the second grade teacher that "the H is silent."  I can't make this up.  Like Adair, I went through a process of trying to shed it and then at different times picking it back up.  When I was in seventh grade another city kid, Ted, transferred to my school out in the boonies.  Thank God! Somebody like me, who sounded like me!  We became fast friends and actually shared an apartment when we moved out for the first time at age 20.

One day at our apartment we were talking and Ted says to me "You know what I don't understand, you say some words with the hard accent and others are somewhere between. Like "on", you say it with full-Philly, really draw it out- "AAWWN," but you don't do it with "off."  You just say" Awf" and your done with it."  To this day I still say it that way.  My response was that I didn't like the way it sounded, it didn't sound right when people said "AAWWFF."  Just like it didn't sound right when the bumpkins said "AHHFF and AHHN"  I remember Ted going "So AWWNN is acceptable for a two letter word but AAWWFF is not for a three letter word?" Yep, that's right- then and now.  Like Jim Adair noted in his Op-Ed, sometimes I did think we sounded stupid."

On many words I adapted. Sometimes it was really hard and I felt like a sell out. When I moved back to the city, I noticed that my accent was now a hybrid.  In Philly, many of our sentences are like one long word. As a result we clip off unneeded letters, the aforementioned "Umor," with becomes "wit" We also use "Yo" at the beginning of a sentences the way Canadians use "Eh" at the end.  (Special note, I do that one also and none of my friends knows how or when I appropriated a Canadian phrase.)

"Yo, wannagowitmetodastore?"  In plain English that's "Do you want to go to the store with me?"   Saturday Night Live did a spoof of Mare of Easttown called Murder Durder and one of the characters says to the two Delco-like cops "...and can you guys spell that for me?"  When I get upset or angry I revert back automatically, it's not thought out, it just happens.  I've warned people that if I start sound like I'm back in Philly you know I'm pissed off.  It's not just because I was wearing a mask that you can't understand me.

I noticed that when my Dad was in his 50's and was around his childhood friends that his accent automatically kicked in, when we were around family all of us, Aunts, Uncles, cousins it became automatic. When I went away to college there was a mixed group of us hanging out one night and a girl from Long Island, NY (now there's a very specific accent) and a girl from Brooklyn, NY (there too!) told me I was the one with a very strong accent.

As my Dad got older I referred to it as "lazy mouth" when he began speaking like we were in the city again.  Then, when I got to my 50's I've done the same.  Sometimes I catch myself.  I long ago shed Bee-YOO-tee-full, Grat-EE-Tood and while I still have the Philly attitude, what my friends call my "edge" it is not ATT-EE-Tood.  Some of my cousins who moved out the city before me still say it that way.

Answerman says "How we speak and how we sound is a clear indication of where we are from.  There's nothing wrong with it unless you want to be an announcer or news reporter.  The accent is an accent of life. If you want to come visit I will leave a light AAWWN for you."