Mehfuh

I grew up in Meffa and gradiated Meffa High. Ah high school class of '79 won the Supa Bowl. It was so wicked!!!! Now, to cleaha up some misconstruities about this prununciation thing....I have travelled to Africa and back and now live in Iowa. I work at a hotel and often check in guests who come from Massachusetts, better known as, Taxachusetts, and when they see my name tag and see that I am from the official "Medford, MA" AND they too are from this "official City" their respose is......NO WAY!!! YOWAH FRUM MEFFA?????So theya yugo. Meffa is the official prununciation of this great city!!! WICKED!!!!

Medford High School, 1958. OK, so I'm an OLD fart (FAHT). But the name of the city, according to the residents of my generation, is pronounced either "Medfid" "Metfid," "Medfit," or "Metfit." All pretty close, actually. It all depends on whether or not you still have your front teeth. If you play hockey, you don't. One thing, though: It is NEVER "Meffah." Absolutely NEVAH!! After 40 years of business travel, living elsewhere, and public speaking, I've lost most of my local accent, but just ten minutes with my bruthah in Ahlington, or 10 seconds in a cab from Logan, and I'm back.

I was raised in West Suhmerville and then moved to Ahlington neer the Pak Circal. I hung around lots of people in MedFID (NEVER sounded like anything else to us.)

IT WILL NEVER BE MEFFA!!!! i live in the Hillside right next to the commuter rail (and i just graduated from Medford High last may ) and i have NEVER heard it pronounced "meffa" from people who live here. i have been asked by people from all over the state if its really called "meffa", NO! its not! i personally say medfid and i have never/will never call it meffa!!

I grew up in medfid, moved to carlisle than the netherlands. When meeting a guy from South Boston in Holland, I proudly said 'I'm from Medfid'Kim

Ok Lets Get It Straight Here...Its MEDFID. When people say Medffa I want to slap them. Anyone who lives in the city or grew up there knows that it isnt Medffa and the only people who say it are out of towners. So Please Anyone who's path any of us cross call it MEDFID not Medffa, its so annoying you have no idea!

Alright once and for all! If you live in Medfid Arlington,Summaville or anywhere else near medfid you will know that it is pronounce MEDFID!!!!!!!!!I have yet to hear anyone call it meffa thats from medfid! West Medfid Pride!

As someone from Everett, when I started to hear "Meffa" and I thought that people were joking. It seems that the joke has become fact. The towns in the area are Med-fid, Ev-rit, Riv-e-ah, Su-mah-ville, Ah-ling-ton, Lex-in-ton, Bill-ric-a, and Bos-tin.

I think this disgusting overblown myth of "Meffa" is evident of the Boston area's incredible A.) snobbery and elitism and B.) vicious anti-Italian prejudice. I say this because even though Medford is actually as Irish as it is Italian, there are many Irish enclaves around Boston, but Medford is particularly associated with Italian-Americans, and especially southern Italian or Sicilian ones (as one finds in the North End). The fact that the people on this board have shot down the truth of the "Meffa" pronunciation (And they should know, they LIVED there) and that Medford's own mayor, Michael McGlynn has stated that the whole "Meffa" thing was started by some ignorant radio DJ's decades ago, should points out that certain people around the Boston area think nothing of ignorantly slandering an entire city of people they basically no NOTHING about. In fact, Mayor McGlynn points out that Medford means "Meadow by the Ford."If rank n' file educated Bostonians did that about any other ethnic enclave (even though Medford only is around 35+ % Italian, not 80 or 90%) wouldn't people go abolutely nuts? Imagine if outsiders referred to Mattapan as "Muhbattabapan" or Roxbury as "Raaawksbeaaahry" in exagerrated old-school black accents? Or Brookline as "Brooookloin" in a sterotypical New Yawk Jewish accent? And calling Medford "Meffa", which is a Boston accent doesn't even make sense. Every place with a Boston accent (i.e. Quincy, Southie, Dorchester, Brighton, etc.) would pronounce Medford AND their own town that exaggeratedly. Why is Medford singled out? In fact, I've met Medfordites who have little or no "Boston accent". No, I think it's a disgusting, repugnant classism of the Boston area to absolutely trash and ridicule working class people from un-hip towns (that these idiots have never even visited) and in this case is racist against who they perceive as inferior Italian "Guidos".By the way, I'm not Italian at all.

Repeat aftah meMedfidBedfidConkidMaynidChelmsfidAt least that's the North Cambridge and West Summahvahl prononciation. I don't know about all those rich kids in West Cambridge and Belmont though.If you call it Meffa your not from around heah.Speaking of which, Ben, clearly your not from around heah. Go rent Good Will Hunting, it's a nice primer for outsiders. Oh yah and cahm yoah livva will ya.

On the Noath Shoah we always called it "Medfid" (well ... the few times I can ever remember saying "Medfid", anyway).

I always heard it Medfid growing up in Br'ricka. (the stops on the Lowell train out of North Station were "West Medfid, Wedgemeah, Winchesta, Wilmington, Nawth BillrickerandLoll") I never heard Meffa until I was in college; I think this is another one that Charles Laquedera on WBCN is responsible for spreading in the 70s-80s.

Born, raised, and still living in West Medfid.Never heard anyone here say "Meffa." Growing up we'd hear that and wonder where it was coming from.Anyone else remember "Hegna" for a retard?

The term Hegna was used in Medford because there used to be center for the mentally disabled on main street, across from the old Dairy Queen, (I think its a Dunkin Donuts now). The school was called the Hegna Center.It didnt take too much imagination for everyone to start calling everyone that went there "Hegna's".

IS IT A TRANSCRIPTION CONFUSION?I grew up not far from Medford, in the 60's, and I took a few courses in linguistics in college.(Disclaimer, I am by no means a linguistics expert! Perhaps some professional linguist might happen by here and correct and/or elaborate upon what I have to say. I have tried to use easily-understandable language rather than academically-correct terms.)Studying articulatory phonetics and phonetic variation roused my curiosity about certain aspects of my own speech, which in subsequent decades I've sporadically investigated.One of these is the glottal stop. The glottal stop is the non-sound in between the two parts of "Uh oh!" I didn't realize until someone pointed it out to me, that I sometimes pronounce the word "bottle" similarly to speakers of the traditional Cockney dialect in England, ie as two syllables, "boh" and "ull", separated, as "uh-oh" is, by a glottal stop. In other words, in a few circumstances I replace a consonant with a glottal stop (Cockney speakers do so in a much wider range of circumstances). In English, the glottal stop doesn't have its own identity, so to speak. It is considered a variant of, or a mispronunciation of, another sound such at "t" or "d". In some languages the glottal stop is a regular consonsant, and has its own letter to represent it in writing. In the International Phonetic Alphabet which is used by linguists to precisely describe speech sounds, the IPA, it is represented by a question mark without the dot.Here's the thing about Medford, I'm pretty sure that if I weren't thinking about it I'd pronounce each "d" in this word as a glottal stop, or something very like it. It's awkward and confusing to try to write the exact sounds of speech with just the regular English alphabet. I would guess that if asked to write down *exactly* the sounds I make when I say "Medford", most of the people who've weighed in here, after listening to me, would write something like "medfid", but listeners from other parts of the US, who do not use the glottal stop in such words, might write "meffuh". That is to say, WE "hear", or more precisely we notice that we're hearing, a glottal stop, which WE understand to be a pronunication of the letter "d". Because it is very hard to notice sounds or distinctions one does not oneself use, THEY do not notice the glottal stop, or as they would probably say, THEY do not "hear" a "d", or even anything at all in that spot.Perhaps "Meffa", sounding like "Mecca", resulted from people who couldn't hear the glottal stop attempting to imitate natives' pronunciation, and doing it so inaccurately that they produced a whole new pronunciation. (Sad that it is apparently, from what you guys are saying, catching on.)This is similar to something that has always bugged me about tv/movie "Boston" accents. One reason they sound so phony is that usually the actors, properly, drop the "r"'s, but they do not properly lengthen the vowel to replace the dropped "r". When a New England speaker says "car", I "hear" an "r" at the end of that word. What I am actually hearing is that the vowel takes a slightly but noticeably longer time. It is a longer time than the "ah" sound in "can't" or "half" which is regular length. Sometimes an actor trying for perfection will lengthen the vowels, but they hardly ever get the exact timing right, and thus end up with extra-extra-long vowels, which sounds more like they're mocking the accent than participating in it.Here's how to tell if you're making a glottal stop:First, as many times as necessary, say the word slowly, as if you're a first grader sounding it out, pronouncing each letter fully one at a time. Notice that the "d" has you putting your tongue up behind your top teeth and then pulling it down to a position closer to your bottom teeth, closer to the position in which it would rest, and at the same time as that downward movement takes place, some air is coming out of your mouth. You can feel the air coming out if you put a hand in front of your lips. Also your vocal cords are moving. If you put your hand lightly on your throat in the area of the adam's apple while you're humming, and then while whispering, you can feel a vibration during the humming that is not present during the whispering, that's your vocal cords vibrating. Feel that same area during normal speech and you'll notice that the vibration is intermittent, ie some sounds use "voice" and some are "unvoiced" like whispers.After you have gotten a feel for tongue, air, and voice, now say the word the regular way, noticing what the tongue does when you get to the "d" part of the word. What happens in MY mouth is that at the end of each syllable of "medford", the tongue is *still* up behind the top teeth. In other words, it has done only 1/2 of the maneuver that it did for the "sounding-out" "d" -- that pulling-down thing just didn't happen. The other movements which accompanied that down-swing are also missing, the air coming out and the vocal cords vibrating, which together create the noise that most people need to hear in order to know that a "d" was said. The first half of the "d" maneuver is still being executed the same, the part where the tongue goes up behind the top teeth and the stream of air is briefly halted, but the second half, the part with all the noise, is missing. If you put your hand in front of your lips while saying Medford the regular way, you will probably notice that there is no air coming out while the "d" is being said, and if you put your hand on your throat you'll notice that the vibration is missing too (there will be a vibration during the vowel, but it will stop at the "d"). At least that's how it will be if you say it the way I do. :-)There's a lot going on in that second half of the sounded-out "d", most of which is easy for most English speakers to notice. When only the first half alone is used, as many of us do in this word, it's too subtle for most non-natives to hear unless they work at it.In our superiority we can speak/hear just half and not need to bother with the rest. Let's be compassionate with those who are not as capable. :-)But don't let the lowest common denominator dictate *your* pronunciation or your spelling! If someone writes that you say "Meffa", let 'em know that just because THEY can't hear those "d's", that doesn't mean they've gone entirely. They left behind a glottal stop, which should be somehow indicated in the spelling. If you can't use IPA, then Medfid IS the most accurate transcription.

Meffid, yup; Medfid? sure. But Muffah/Meffuh was popularized during the Quaalude era when stoners and other beaned-out kids couldn't get their jaws in sync with their swollen tongues. Anyone using this derisively would usually receive a response concerning his mother, his sister, and a "wanna go?" Especially if you were in the Mad Hattah...

I theorize that "Meffa" and "Meffid" could reflect a Gaelic tendency to drop d's. For example, in Gaelic the name Edmund is Eamon.