The Accent

Brendon is developing a Boston Accent. I just know it. I like Boston Accents, so I think it'll be cool to have a kid who has one.

The other day, I was itemizing the foods he ate during lunch so that I could count up the carbs.

"Mom, I'll tell you what the bread is."

"OK, what is it?"

"The bread is 14 cobs."

Come again?

"Say that again, how many?"

"14 cobs."

Hmm. Maybe it was a fluke. I thought it was...until today.

He came home from school today asking me where the sign up sheet was for a jump rope fundraiser the students are doing to promote physical fitness and to prevent cardiovascular disease.

"Mom, where's the form for the jump rope contest?"

"It's somewhere on the counter. Why do you want to know?"

"Well, we have to raise money so that people can stop having hot attacks."

WHAAAT??!! There it was again. No mistaking it.

"Bren, what do people have to stop having?"

"Hot attacks."

There you go folks. Brendon has a bit of the Boston Accent.

Let me tell you the adjustment I've had to make to translate this Boston Accent that actually creates its own Language.

The real estate agent who showed us houses while we were making our move up here, had a really heavy Boston Accent. We found and bought the house we're currently living in, but the kitchen needed to be gutted and replaced.

He and a friend did kitchen remodeling on the side and he offered his services. We set up a date for him to come over to discuss plans. Here's a snippet of a call I got from him the day he was to come over:

"Hi Shannon, I'm going to be late for our appointment. My friend's boila (boiler) broke and I have to help him fix it. They don't have a pot, so I have to go out and buy one. I'll let you know when I'm on my way."

"OK, fine, I'll be around."

Hmm, I thought to myself, why doesn't his friend have a pot, doesn't he cook?...Why do they even need a pot, maybe a pipe burst or something? Wouldn't a bucket work better?

Hours later our agent finally shows up and I ask him about how it worked out with the pot...did the basement flood while he was buying one?

"What? Whataya talking about."

"You said you needed to buy a pot, so I assumed a pipe burst or something."

"Nooo, we needed a pot to fix the boila."

"OOOHHH, you needed a PARRRRT."

Laughing at our misunderstanding he said, "Parrrt, right".

During another instance of "lost in translation", I was walking the neighborhood with my neighbor and we were talking about our houses and what had to be done.... All of a sudden, she says, "WOW!! LOOK AT THAT YOD!!"

"WHAT!!!??? WHERE??!!" I was startled. From her tone, I figured yods cannot be good. "What's a yod?"

"Oh, I meant yarrrd."

"Where the hell did that accent come from? I've never detected it."

"Well, I don't like to admit that I'm from Methuen (a suburb close to Boston), so I've made a point to hide my accent...I guess I slipped."

Another mistranslation happened yearrrrs ago to my mom's cousin who's son was getting married. His son had his Boston friends staying at the house instead of a hotel. One night while hanging out in the basement, one of the Boston friends asked:

"Where are the dots?"

"What was that?", my mom's cousin asked.

"The dots, where are the dots?"

My mom's cousin was shocked he would ask such a thing. You see, in New Jersey "dot" is short for "dot head", a derogatory word for Indian (the kind from India with the dots on their forehead). He had no idea why they would want to know where the Dot Heads were...were they going to cause trouble with them? Were they just curious? If so, then why? These Boston friends were known to be hot heads (that's actually hot, not heart) so maybe they just needed to blow off steam and cause trouble.

Finally my mom's cousin asks with a bit of trepidation:

"Why do you want to know where the Dots are?"

"Uh, so we can play dots? You know, on the dot bawd?"

Ahhh. My mom's cousin relaxed and gladly showed them where he kept the darrrrts, relieved that they weren't out to start trouble.

I often have to ask people to repeat what they've said because they lift the RRRRs from words and create whole new words. Sometimes I feel like I've moved to a foreign country...well, this is New Hampshire...maybe I'm not so far off.