Best New York slang is saying, "lemme get a" when you order hot food at a bodega.
I honestly had no idea that wasn’t universal. Never thought twice about it.
same
You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
21–30 of 80 posts
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#22Neither hacking nor news... Peculiar...
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#23> In dissecting the exaggerated New York accents of Bugs Bunny
When I was a little kid in the 60s, I remember someone interviewing Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs). He couldn’t decide whether a Bronx or Brooklyn accent sounded tougher, so he chose elements of both for Bugs’ voice. Having grown up in CT, it was the first time I realized there were different regional accents even among the different NYC boroughs.
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well don’t leave us hangin
Can’t speak to evolution, but you’ll hear the old school accent (real, not the “boids” cartoon version) anywhere that doesn’t get a lot of transplants. Bay ridge, Bensonhurst, corona, Astoria, midwood, Staten Island, etc.
Definitely all over eastern Queens
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#25Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#26The most perplexing thing about New York English is the use of "on line" instead of "in line" when waiting for something.
I thought that was a Jersey thing. Never came across it until college when a Jersey person mentioned it. Sparked a nice debate around terminology and pronunciation in the group (otherwise made up of MA and CT).
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#27> In dissecting the exaggerated New York accents of Bugs Bunny When I was a little kid in the 60s, I remember someone interviewing Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs). He couldn’t decide whether a Bronx or Brooklyn accent sounded tougher, so he chose elements of both for Bugs’ voice. Having grown up in CT, it was the first time I realized there were different regional accents even among the different NYC boroughs.
Not only between the boroughs, but in neighborhoods within them: the part of Manhattan that my family is from pronounces “law” as “loar,” versus “looah” in the main Manhattan dialect. My friends from Brooklyn and Queens say “lah.”
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#28What's slightly funny is that De Niro explicitly doesn't have a New York accent when he says that famous line. If anything he's putting on a more neutral accent than his normal one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWL-FwX4t4
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#29Growing up in the Midwest I took a job with a Midwestern tech company that had a LOT of east coast banks as customers. Some folks would warn you that when you talked to them they're "really rude" but others would tell you that they sound harsh, but actually are really nice.
It was a curious mix of warnings, and for the most part I certainly noticed the accent and different patterns, but didn't think twice about it.
Then one day at 3am on a conference call I was frustrated and interrupted "No that's not how it works, let me tell him what to do for a minute!" I didn't try to sound rude about it but I was tired and my voice didn't sound like I expected.
Then from the silence came a voice from the VP who was listening to the chaos "Yo, Mark is that youse!?!?" oddly this VP had a very practiced non accent but in this case he let it out.
"Hey let's give Mark some time here and see what he can do."
So I gave instructions and things were fixed promptly.
Everyone on the call was happy and congratulated me and went on with their night.
What I realized after the call was that me interrupting and sounding like I did wasn't taken as rude anymore than they were rude when they did the same. It sounded like CONFIDENCE (and to a lesser extent it sent a signal I was engaged in the issue form the start) to them.
The verbal tussling involved a lot more than just folks talking over each other, we were establishing who thought what, but also how sure they were, who wanted in on the decision making and etc.
It also became clear that when they would doubt or challenge my ideas in the past, it was more of a 'challenge' to get me to respond and make it clear how confidant I was. If I withdrew verbally ... well then I was sending the signal I wasn't sure. If I changed my voice, interrupted, sounded a little annoyed, or even just made a joke... we would have more to talk about.
The real fun began when those big banks merged with some west coast operations and they'd both appeal to me with help getting through to 'those guies' ;)
Re: You Talkin’ to Me? The Unruly History of New York English
#30Yeah, regional American accents are dying, unfortunately. I think they added a lot of color to dialog in the U.S. My own grandfather grew up in the Appalachians during the Great Depression and has to this day the thickest accent and the funniest idioms. But with each generation after him the accent has worn off more and more. When you go to NYC you kinda hope to run into these old school New Yorkers and have them tur…
> When you go to NYC you kinda hope to run into these old school New Yorkers and have them turn and yell at you, "I'm walkin' here!"
Visiting NYC in 2018 and 2019 made me realize that that phrase is literal. There's nothing like walking down the sidewalk only to have the guy in front of you just stop to gawk at something with no warning, forcing you to stop short or swerve on a dime to avoid bumping into them. Or maybe if you're lucky they didn't just stop short, they'd already been just standing there in the dead center of the sidewalk since they came into view, but you still have to go around them.
After one afternoon of walking around the city, I already felt like shouting "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" several times.
(and being a tourist myself, I was actively self-conscious of whenever I wanted to gawk at something, so I always made sure I moved to the innermost part of the sidewalk and put my back to a wall if I ever wanted to stop and look at something or pull my phone out)