Sure, sure, Boston English has different pronunciations and vocabulary than English as it is spoken elsewhere, but it also has some unique grammar as well.
A few years back (but just now reaching us here in the UHub cave high up on a ridge on the Roslindale/Hyde Park frontier), the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project took a detailed, scholarly look at our unique negative positives, such as "So don't I!" Or what linguists apparently call "implicature canceling:"
[W]hen speaker A explicitly states that he/she plays basketball, he/she also implies that speaker B does not play basketball. Then, by saying, "So don't I," speaker B asserts that he/she actually does play basketball, contrary to A's implicature. Thus, although So don't I is affirmative, it also has a negative function in that it negates an unspoken assertion.
That seems to be a rather dour view of the Boston psyche, but maybe those scholars had just returned to their office after having gotten cut off on I-84 by a Masshole.
Apparently, the northern and southern boundaries of the usage go from York, ME to New Haven; a western boundary isn't set, but presumably it's somewhere east of Stockbridge. Still, like "bubbla" in Wisconsin, there are some exceptions, but there's a good explanation:
Lawler (1974) reports the phenomenon in DeKalb County, Illinois. In a posting on Linguist List, Lawler states that many "many early settlers of DeKalb County originated" in New England.
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Comments
Definitely thought this headline...
By mseskin
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 12:47pm
Was about the high school.
Boston English...
By dmcboston
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 1:38pm
"[W]hen speaker A explicitly states that he/she plays basketball, he/she also implies that speaker B does not play basketball. Then, by saying, "So don't I," speaker B asserts that he/she actually does play basketball, contrary to A's implicature. Thus, although So don't I is affirmative, it also has a negative function in that it negates an unspoken assertion."
An affirmative that is also negating something. That's linguistical subltetyness. Boston...our English is better than yours. Even if it's another language, like say...Latin.
Latin?
By adamg
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 4:29pm
No, that was across the street from English.
right?
By cybah
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 12:50pm
right?
(isnt this a boston thing.. although thanks to internets its everywhere but I remember it starting here)
And another thing:
By Turalura Lipschitz
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 1:09pm
Is Boston the only place where 'comfortable' is a 2-½ syllable word (COMF-tahbl), rather than 4 syllables?
Bravo
By L'il Peapod
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 1:23pm
My deceased faathah felt strongly about this, as well as despising "Bostin" without the second O.
But then again...
By anon
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 1:45pm
...old time Bostonians are also famous for making one syllable words into two syllable words. An example being "foe-wah" for "four".
Or the second grade teacher
By anon
Tue, 12/01/2020 - 4:47pm
Or the second grade teacher with eyes on the back of her head snappped out “Dontchu Dayah!”
No, I grew up saying it like
By aegtx
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 1:56pm
No, I grew up saying it like that in Texas. Well, "comf-ter-bl."
"Comfterbl" in the Midwest, too.
By Irma la Douce
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 2:39pm
South Dakota and Michigan.
Place names
By adamg
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 4:31pm
I love this list of fake Massachusetts place names in part because it includes Unstable (pronounced the Massachusetts way, of course).
I love that thing
By eeka
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 11:56am
My family members and I have started referring to behavior as "UNstable."
I thought BBC announcer types
By JonT
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 11:54am
I thought BBC announcer types were the only ones who pronounced "comfortable" with four syllables. Or "temperature" for that matter. I grew up with its three syllables being "tem-pra-choor", though these days it seems like most weather forecasters say "tem-pih-choor".
It's all pigeon talk
By Daan
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 10:45pm
Boston and New York pigeons are apparently quite distinct from each other. Something to do with a non-urban gap in CT that neither side can broach.
If there is any relationship between regional language and regional pigeons, it raises the question of whether this is a matter for scholars of pidgin (corrected) talk.
If you want to drag Connecticut into this...
By anon
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 4:01pm
I've noticed that Connecticut natives do not pronounce the letter "t" if it falls in the middle of a word. For example "mountain" becomes "mow-in" with a sort of glottal stop throat thing in the middle.
CT born and raise, I worked a
By Berit
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 5:16pm
CT born and raise, I worked a long time to say mit-ten, not mit-en.
But it goes further than that..
By Mr. T.
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 10:42am
Some people insist on pronouncing it "Mih-in". with no t sound at all.
And
By eeka
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 11:56am
Brigh-in.
Connecticut
By eeka
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 11:57am
Like New Bri-in?
Pidgin?
By Charles Bahne
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 5:07pm
I think you meant pidgin. Funny how the letters transpose themselves sometimes.
New Haven Connecticut @adamg?
By Don't Panic
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 4:05pm
New Haven Connecticut @adamg?
That's what she said
By adamg
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 4:32pm
Um, they said ...
I grew up here...
By Bob Leponge
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 4:26pm
... and “so don’t I” sounds every bit as illiterate and moronic to me now as it did when I was a kid. I wince every time I hear it. Like fingernails on chalkboard.
Huh
By perruptor
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 6:34pm
Me, I could care less.
Didn't grow up here
By eeka
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 11:59am
But came here as a young adult 20ish years ago.
Isn't it a feature of certain working-class dialects specifically? It definitely doesn't occur in all "Boston" accents. I'm sure it sounds strange if it isn't part of your dialect.
... and “so don’t I” sounds
By Scratchie
Tue, 12/01/2020 - 9:18am
You must be wicked smart.
“So don’t I”
By Lee
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 6:39pm
Jabberwocky talk.
I love language quirks and as long as I understand what someone is saying I’m okay with any way they say it.
I don't know if it's unique to Boston...
By uhub-fan
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 8:43pm
...but I have always found the "plural singular" to be quite amusing: i.e. "These ones"
...
By eeka
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 11:59am
These ones are mines? ;-)
It’s not singular
By Bob Leponge
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 8:00pm
It’s plural all the way through: “we have 2 kinds of sweaters; these ones over here are all $50 and those ones over there are $25” I suppose you could drop the “ones”....
"Oh, light dawns on Marblehead!" ...
By Cutter
Sat, 11/28/2020 - 11:31pm
... is my favorite Massachusetts idiom, because it's what you say/yell when someone took too long to agree with you.
I'm totally confused by the
By anon
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 3:31am
I'm totally confused by the meaning of 'so don't I' still!
Isn't 'neither do I' the simple solution here?
No, it isn't
By perruptor
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 12:42pm
So don't I means exactly the opposite of neither do I. You want I do, too.
More like...
By Michael Kerpan
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 5:44pm
"I do too, you friggin' moron" (Right?)
The simple solution
By Bob Leponge
Sun, 11/29/2020 - 8:02pm
Is the standard English “so do I”
South Coast native here: we
By MC Slim JB
Mon, 11/30/2020 - 5:05pm
used "So don't I" to mean "So do I." Another one that seems to have disappeared since my youth was, "Please?" for "Come again? I didn't quite catch what you said." We also drank from "bubblas" in the school hallway, and had to ask for permission to use "the sanitary" if we'd hit the bubbla too hahd. Visiting the basement was "going down cella". There are dozens of others, like the "tonic" aisle at the supermarket (which I still see around, like at the Stop & Shop in City Point.) Long sandwiches, cold or oven-toasted, are still mostly referred to as "grinders" in local pizza shops.
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