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Northeastern elite accent#Notable speakers

{{Short description|Set of American English accents}}

A Northeastern elite accent is any of the related American English accents used by members of the wealthy Northeastern elite born in the 19th century and early 20th century, which share significant features with Eastern New England English and Received Pronunciation (RP), the standard British accent.Hubbell, Allan Forbes. "GENERAL OBSERVATIONS; LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY". The Pronunciation of English in New York City: Consonants and Vowels, New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 1950, pp. 1-11. https://doi.org/10.7312/hubb94024-002{{cite web |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/02/why-did-william-f-buckley-jr-talk-like-that.html |title=Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. talk like that? |last=Tsai |first=Michelle |work=Slate |date=28 February 2008 |access-date=28 February 2008}} The late 19th century first produced audio recordings of and general commentary about such accents used by affluent East Coast and Northern Americans, particularly New Yorkers and New Englanders, sometimes directly associated with their education at private preparatory schools.

On one hand, scholars traditionally describe these accents as prescribed or affected ways of speaking consciously acquired in elite schools of that era. From the 1920s through 1950s specifically, these high-society speaking styles may overlap with a briefly fashionable accent taught in certain American courses on elocution, voice, and acting, including in several public and private secondary schools in the Northeast. Both types of accent are most commonly labeled a Mid-Atlantic accentDel Signore, John (2008). "New York City Accents Changing with the Times". Gothamist. New York Public Radio. or Transatlantic accent. On the other hand, linguist Geoff Lindsey argues that many Northern elite accents were not explicitly taught but rather persisted naturally among the upper class;Lindsey, Geoff. "Hollywood's "Fake" Mid-Atlantic Myth DEBUNKED!" YouTube, uploaded by Dr Geoff Lindsey, June 2024, {{YouTube|id=9xoDsZFwF-c}} linguist John McWhorter expresses a middle-ground possibility.McWhorter, John (2015). "[https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=19486 On American r-lessness]". Language Log.

No consistent name exists for this class of accents. It has also occasionally been called Northeastern standard or cultivated American speech. Another similar accent, Canadian dainty, resulted from different historical processes in Canada, existing for a century before waning in the 1950s.[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canadian-dainty-accent-canada-day-1.4167610 "Some Canadians used to speak with a quasi-British accent called Canadian Dainty"]. CBC News, 1 July 2017.

History

Since as late as the mid-19th century, upper-class Americans, particularly of the Northern and Eastern United States, are noted as adopting several phonetic qualities of Received PronunciationWhite, E. J. (2020). You Talkin' to Me?: The Unruly History of New York English. Oxford University Press.{{cite book |title=Singing and communicating in English: a singer's guide to English diction |last=LaBouff |first=Kathryn |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-531138-9 |pages=241–42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=57WViR5nTrYC |location=New York}}—the standard accent of the British upper class—as evidenced in recorded public speeches of the time. One of these qualities is non-rhoticity, sometimes called "R-dropping", in which speakers delete the phoneme {{IPA|/r/}} except before a vowel sound (thus, in pair but not pairing). This feature is also shared by the traditional regional dialects of Eastern New England (including Boston), New York City, and some areas of the South. Sociolinguists like William Labov and his colleagues note that non-rhoticity, "as a characteristic of British Received Pronunciation, was also taught as a model of correct, international English by schools of speech, acting, and elocution in the United States up to the end of World War II. It was the standard model for most radio announcers and used as a high prestige form by Franklin Roosevelt".Labov, William et al. (2006). "The restoration of post-vocalic /r/". The Atlas of North American English Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Mouton de Gruter: "The basic vernacular of New York City was consistently r-less in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. r-less pronunciation, as a characteristic of British Received Pronunciation, was also taught as a model of correct, international English by schools of speech, acting, and elocution in the United States up to the end of World War II. It was the standard model for most radio announcers and used as a high prestige form by Franklin Roosevelt".

Early recordings of prominent Americans born in the middle of the 19th century provide some insight into their adoption, or not, of a carefully employed non-rhotic elite speaking style. President William Howard Taft, who attended public school in Ohio, and inventor Thomas Edison, who grew up in Ohio and Michigan in a family of modest means, both used natural rhotic accents. But Presidents William McKinley of Ohio and Grover Cleveland of Central New York, who attended private schools, clearly employed a non-rhotic, upper-class quality in their public speeches that does not align with the rhotic accents normally documented in Ohio and central New York at the time. Both men even used the distinctive, archaic affectation of a "tapped R" at times when R is pronounced, often when between vowels.Metcalf, A. (2004). Presidential Voices. Speaking Styles from George Washington to George W. Bush. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 144–148. This tapped articulation is sometimes heard in recordings of Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley's successor from an affluent district of New York City, who used a cultivated non-rhotic accent, but with the addition of the coil-curl merger, once notably associated with New York accents. His distant cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt also employed a non-rhotic elite accent,{{cite book | title=English Historical Sociolinguistics | author=Millar, Robert McColl | pages=25–26 | publisher=Edinburgh University Press | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-7486-4181-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IdJGzHtdEVgC}} though without the tapped R or the merger.

In and around Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a similar accent was associated with the local urban elite: the Boston Brahmins. In the New York metropolitan area, particularly its affluent Westchester County suburbs and the North Shore of Long Island, some terms for the local Transatlantic pronunciation and accompanying facial behavior included "Locust Valley lockjaw" or "Larchmont lockjaw", named for the stereotype that its speakers clench their jaw muscles to achieve an exaggerated enunciation quality.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/18/magazine/on-language.html|title=On Language|first=William|last=Safire|work=The New York Times |date=18 January 1987|via=NYTimes.com}} The related term "boarding-school lockjaw" has also been used for the accent once considered a characteristic of elite New England boarding-school culture. This set of accents is also linked with Old Philadelphians of the Philadelphia Main Line in this period.

These accents rapidly declined after World War II, presumably as a result of cultural and demographic changes in the United States.Knight, Dudley. "Standard Speech". In: Hampton, Marian E. & Barbara Acker (eds.) (1997). The Vocal Vision: Views on Voice. Hal Leonard Corporation. p p. 171. These American versions of a "posh" accent have disappeared even among the American upper classes, as Americans have increasingly dissociated from all speaking styles of the East Coast since the mid-20th century.

Notable speakers

Wealthy or highly educated Americans known as lifelong speakers of a Northeastern elite accent in the 20th century include political commentator William F. Buckley Jr.;{{cite news|last=Konigsberg |first=Eric |date=29 February 2008 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/nyregion/29buckley.html?pagewanted=print |title= On TV, Buckley Led Urbane Debating Club |work=The New York Times |access-date=18 June 2011}} authors Gore Vidal{{cite episode|last1=Shapiro|first1=Ari (host)|author-link1=Ari Shapiro|last2=Nosowitz|first2=Dan (guest)|date=November 25, 2016|title='Atlas Obscura' Explores Roots Of The So-Called Mid-Atlantic Accent|url=https://www.npr.org/2016/11/25/503361303/atlas-obscura-explores-roots-of-the-so-called-mid-atlantic-accent|series=All Things Considered|series-link=All Things Considered}} and H. P. Lovecraft;{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3oH_VdH3BcC&pg=PA88 |title=The Cosmic Yankee |first=Jason C. |last=Eckhardt |year=1991 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press |isbn=9780838634158 |access-date=17 May 2017 }} President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his mother, Sara Roosevelt,{{cite url|title=Mother of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sara Delano Roosevelt during an interview at Hyde Park, New York. |url=https://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675036761_Sarah-D-Roosevelt_mother-of-Franklin-Roosevelt_eightieth-birthday_interview |date=26 September 1934 |access-date=26 January 2025}} and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt; Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth;{{cite url|title=NIXON TAPES: Re-Election (Teddy Roosevelt's Daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQ1XbP2hUQ |date=13 November 1972 |access-date=28 January 2025}} politician and diplomat Averell Harriman;{{cite news | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZU0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA57 |title=W. Averell Harriman |first=Charles J.V. |last=Murphy |pages=57–66 |magazine=Life |date=30 December 1946 | access-date=16 July 2018 }}{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b-kCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28 |title=New York Magazine|first=New York Media|last=LLC|date=2 September 1991|publisher=New York Media, LLC|via=Google Books}} politician Dean Acheson;{{Cite web|url=https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/1998/09/how-dean-acheson-won-the-cold-war-statesmanship-morality-and-foreign-policy?lang=en|title=How Dean Acheson Won the Cold War: Statesmanship, Morality, and Foreign Policy|first1=Robert|last1=Kagan|website=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace}} President John F. Kennedy{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/314791/John-F-Kennedy/3868/Presidential-candidate-and-president|title=John F. Kennedy|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|year=2009}} and his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (who began affecting it permanently while at Miss Porter's School);Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier, Barbara A. Perry{{cite news|last=Whipp|first=Glenn|date=January 26, 2017|title=Natalie Portman's four steps — some simple, some not — to becoming Jackie Kennedy|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mn-natalie-portman-jackie-oscars-20170126-story.html|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=January 5, 2025}} novelists Louis Auchincloss[http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/10790/ Louis Auchincloss, the Last of the Gentlemen Novelists], New York Magazine (5 January 2005) and Norman Mailer;Wiegand. [https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/With-Mailer-s-death-U-S-loses-a-colorful-writer-3236184.php With Mailer's death, U.S. loses a colorful writer and character – SFGate]. Articles.sfgate.com (11 November 2007). Retrieved 18 June 2011. fashion columnist Diana Vreeland (though her accent was somewhat unique);[http://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/lapl-reads/review/empress-fashion Empress of fashion : a life of Diana Vreeland] Los Angeles Public Library Online (28 December 2012). Retrieved 25 November 2013. actress and author C. Z. Guest;{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/05/01/cz-guest-the-rich-fight-back/3f34cd3d-7535-43a1-bae5-608e0fd14620/|title=C.Z. Guest: The Rich Fight Back|newspaper= The Washington Post|author=Sally Quinn|date=May 1, 1977}} journalist Joseph Alsop;{{cite book|author=Sally Bedell Smith|title=Grace & Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=di3BAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT103 |date=15 August 2011|publisher=Aurum Press|isbn=978-1-84513-722-9|page=103}}{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EKiu5c0easYC&pg=PA54 |title=How to Talk Fancy |magazine=SPY magazine |date=May 1988 |access-date=15 May 2017 }}[https://www.c-span.org/video/?124869-1/washington-politics Joseph Alsop] on C-SPAN's Washington Politics program, episode airing on 19 November 1984. Retrieved 15 May 2017. editor Robert Silvers;{{cite magazine|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/05/11/robert-silvers-tributes/|title=Robert B. Silvers (1929–2017) {{pipe}} Joan Didion|website=The New York Review of Books|date=11 May 2017 |volume=64 |issue=8 |access-date=4 January 2025 |last1=Rowland |first1=Ingrid D. |last2=Rich |first2=Nathaniel |last3=Rashidi |first3=Yasmine El |last4=Pinckney |first4=Darryl |last5=O'Toole |first5=Fintan |last6=Malcolm |first6=Janet |last7=Lilla |first7=Mark |last8=Homans |first8=Jennifer |last9=Halpern |first9=Sue |last10=Ash |first10=Timothy Garton |last11=Epstein |first11=Jason |last12=Eisenberg |first12=Deborah |last13=Cole |first13=David |last14=Danner |first14=Mark |last15=Buruma |first15=Ian |last16=Blair |first16=Elaine |last17=Guillermoprieto |first17=Alma |last18=Smith |first18=Zadie |last19=Didion |first19=Joan }}{{cite news |last=Tucker |first=Neely |date=November 6, 2013|title=The New York Review of Books turns 50|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50/2013/11/06/5e031f64-4703-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=12 May 2024}} television chef Julia Child (though, as the lone non-Northeasterner in this list, her accent was consistently rhotic);McArdle, Megan. [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2008/07/her-voice-sounded-like-money/3848/ "Her voice sounded like money ... "] (July 17, 2008). The Atlantic. newspaper publisher Cornelius Vanderbilt IV;{{cite news |last=Greenhouse |first=Emily |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/05/the-first-american-anti-nazi-film-rediscovered.html |title=The First American Anti-Nazi Film, Rediscovered |magazine=The New Yorker |date=May 2013 |access-date=1 April 2014}} and actress and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt. Except for Child, all of these speakers were raised, educated, or both in the Northeastern United States. This includes just over half who were raised specifically in New York (most of them in New York City) and five who were educated specifically at the independent boarding school Groton in Massachusetts: Franklin Roosevelt, Harriman, Acheson, Alsop, and Auchincloss.

People described as having a cultivated New England accent or "Boston Brahmin accent" include Henry Cabot Lodge,[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x2TGuMdGB0 Henry Cabot Lodge] on the Treaty of Versailles. Retrieved 15 May 2017. Charles Eliot Norton,{{cite book|author=Barbara W. Tuchman|title=Proud Tower|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Dwz91CWjnYC&pg=PT154|access-date=3 April 2012|date=31 August 2011|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|isbn=978-0-307-79811-4|page=154}} Samuel Eliot Morison,{{cite web |url=https://soundcloud.com/harvard/samuel-eliot-morison-1936?in=harvard/sets/harvard-voices |title = Listen to Samuel Eliot Morison, 1936 - Harvard Voices by Harvard University in Harvard Voices playlist online for free on SoundCloud}}Wikipedia:SPS Harry Crosby,{{cite web|url=http://www.ourstory.info/4/a/Crosby.html|title=Harry Grew Crosby|website=The AFS Story|access-date=30 December 2017}} John Brooks Wheelwright,{{cite book|author=Alan M. Wald|title=The revolutionary imagination: the poetry and politics of John Wheelwright and Sherry Mangan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AbBfZty2GpMC&pg=PA93|access-date=3 April 2012|year=1983|publisher=UNC Press Books|isbn=978-0-8078-1535-9|page=93}} George C. Homans,{{cite book|author=A. Javier Treviño|title=George C. Homans: history, theory, and method|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jubtAAAAMAAJ |access-date=11 September 2012|date=April 2006|publisher=Paradigm Publishers|isbn=978-1-59451-191-2|page=vii}} Elliot Richardson,{{cite book|author1=William Thaddeus Coleman|author2=Donald T. Bliss|title=Counsel for the situation: shaping the law to realize America's promise |url=https://archive.org/details/counselforsituat0000cole |url-access=registration|access-date=3 April 2012|date=26 October 2010|publisher=Brookings Institution Press |isbn=978-0-8157-0488-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/counselforsituat0000cole/page/43 43]}} George Plimpton (though he was actually a lifelong member of the New York City elite),[http://gothamist.com/2008/02/25/new_york_city_a_1.php New York City Accents Changing with the Times] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100411215022/http://gothamist.com/2008/02/25/new_york_city_a_1.php |date=11 April 2010 }}{{verify source|date=May 2017}}. Gothamist (25 February 2008). Retrieved 18 June 2011.{{Cite web|url=http://www.observer.com/node/48130|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517075045/http://www.observer.com/node/48130|url-status=dead|title=The Last Gentleman|website=The New York Observer|access-date=17 May 2017|archive-date=17 May 2008}}{{cite book |author1=Larry Gelbart|author2=Museum of Television and Radio (New York, N.Y.)|title=Stand-up comedians on television|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bKFkAAAAMAAJ |access-date=3 April 2012|year=1996|publisher=Harry N. Abrams Publishers|isbn=978-0-8109-4467-1|page=14}} New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean,{{cite news|last=Johnson|first=Brent|date=October 30, 2021|title=Our goofy governors|url=https://www.nj.com/politics/2021/10/our-goofy-governors.html|work=NJ.com|publisher=Advance Local|access-date=April 25, 2025}}{{cite news|last=Kelly|first=Mike|author-link=Mike Kelly (journalist)|date=December 15, 2019|title=Trump should be censured , says former N.J. Gov. Tom Kean|url=https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2019/12/15/trump-should-censured-says-former-n-j-gov-tom-kean/2638746001/|url-access=limited|work=Bergen Record|publisher=Gannett|access-date=April 25, 2025|quote=in his New England prep-school accent}}{{cite magazine|last=Fallows|first=James|author-link=James Fallows|date=June 11, 2015|title=Announcer-Speak: The Video Highlights Reel|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/announcer-speak-the-video-highlights-reel/395585/|url-access=limited|magazine=The Atlantic|access-date=April 25, 2025|quote=[F]ormer N.J. Gov. Tom Kean ... must certainly be the last high-profile American politician to speak that way. ... This old ad for N.J. tourism is how many of us on the East Coast were introduced to his jarringly anachronistic accent.}}{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBJ_hcV9mlk&t=1050s |title=NJ Gov. Tom Kean: biography and remarks at Eagleton Institute of Politics |author=Eagleton Institute of Politics |author-link=Eagleton Institute of Politics |orig-date=Recorded 15 June 2006 |date=4 April 2012 |access-date=30 April 2025}} and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry,{{cite book|author=Bill Sammon |title=Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-UmEawa2dOwC&pg=PA103 |access-date=11 September 2012|date=1 February 2006|publisher=Regnery Publishing|isbn=978-1-59698-002-0|page=103}} the last of whom noticeably reduced this accent since his early adulthood toward a more General American one.{{cite news|last=Worth|first=Robert F.|author-link=Robert F. Worth|date=October 10, 2004|title=Wealth of Others Helped to Shape Kerry's Life|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/politics/campaign/wealth-of-others-helped-to-shape-kerrys-life.html|work=The New York Times|location=Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, France|access-date=January 5, 2025|quote=Mr. Kerry ... exudes a Brahmin reserve. His accent is no longer the upper-class drawl of his youth, but his soft vowels and formal diction still hint at a privileged lineage.}}

Marianne Williamson, a self-help author and a 2020 and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate raised and educated in Texas, has a unique accent that was widely discussed after she participated in the first 2020 Democratic presidential debates in June 2019.{{cite magazine |last1=Saraiya |first1=Sonia |title=Marianne Williamson Explains Her Magical Thinking |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/marianne-williamson-interview |magazine=Vanity Fair |access-date=16 August 2019 |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Stieb |first1=Matt |title=Marianne Williamson's Weirdest, Most Wonderful Debate Moments |url=http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/marianne-williamsons-weirdest-debate-moments.html |website=Intelligencer |access-date=16 August 2019 |language=en |date=28 June 2019}}{{cite magazine |last1=Pareene |first1=Alex |title=Take Marianne Williamson Seriously |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/154389/take-marianne-williamson-seriously |magazine=The New Republic |access-date=16 August 2019 |date=28 June 2019}} For instance, The Guardian wrote that Williamson "speaks in a beguiling mid-Atlantic accent that makes her sound as if she has walked straight off the set of a Cary Grant movie".{{cite web |last1=Arwa |first1=Mahdawi |title=Marianne Williamson is a superstar in the world of woo. Is she also the next US president? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/02/marianne-williamson-is-a-superstar-in-the-world-of-woo-is-she-also-the-next-us-president |website=The Guardian |date=2 July 2019 |access-date=16 August 2019}}

{{stack|File:First Inauguration of FDR - Fear Itself Excerpt.ogg}}

President Franklin Roosevelt, who came from a privileged family in the Hudson Valley north of New York City, had a non-rhotic accent, though it was not a New York accent but rather an elite East Coast one. In one of his most often heard speeches, the "Fear Itself" speech, he uses non-rhotic pronunciations of words like assert and firm along with a falling diphthong in the word fear, all of which distinguish his accent from other forms of surviving non-rhotic speech in the United States.{{cite book|author1=Robert MacNeil|author2=William Cran|author3=Robert McCrum|title=Do you speak American?: a companion to the PBS television series|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lL6mEYcKHFcC&pg=PA50|access-date=18 June 2011|year=2005|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|isbn=978-0-385-51198-8|pages=50–}} Also, in the same speech, linking R appears in his delivery of the words "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; this pronunciation of R is also recorded in his Pearl Harbor speech.Pearl Harbor speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (sound file)

Fictional portrayals

Though these accents declined after World War II, they continued to be used for several decades in the media when depicting elite or snobbish characters.

  • Satirist Tom Lehrer lampooned the effete speech of Boston Brahmins in his 1945 song "Fight Fiercely, Harvard". Lehrer, who was raised in New York City and attended Harvard University, does not normally speak with a Mid-Atlantic accent, but he performs the song with some of its features, most notably non-rhoticity.{{Cite web|url=https://spectator.org/tom-lehrer-is-not-dead-he-just-wants-you-to-think-he-is/|title=Tom Lehrer Is Not Dead! He Just Wants You to Think He Is. | The American Spectator | Politics Is Too Important To Be Taken Seriously.|website=The American Spectator|date=29 March 2017 }} Lehrer's [https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Fight+Fiercely%2C+Harvard&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=audio various recordings] of the song display these features to different degrees.
  • Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer portrayed Thurston and Lovey Howell, a millionaire couple on the 1960s TV series Gilligan's Island; they both employed the Locust Valley lockjaw accent.{{cite web|last=Safire|first=William|author-link=William Safire|title=On Language|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/18/magazine/on-language.html|work=The New York Times|date=January 18, 1987|access-date=December 16, 2019}}

Phonology

File:Roosevelt's Mid-Atlantic monophthongs.svg]

File:Roosevelt's Mid-Atlantic Closing Diphthongs.svg

File:Roosevelt's Mid-Atlantic centering diphthongs.svg

File:Franklin D. Roosevelt's Mid-Atlantic vowels.jpg

  • Non-rhoticity, or "R-dropping", occurs in words like oar, start, there, etc. This is like British Received Pronunciation (RP) and certain other traditional American eastern and southern dialects, but unlike General American English (GA).
  • In the lexical set {{sc2|NURSE}}, most non-rhotic American accents preserve the {{IPA|/r/}} sound. However, similar to RP, older upper-class Northeastern accents drop the {{IPA|/r/}} even in these words: first, pearl, her, etc.
  • Trap–bath split: the vowels in {{sc2|TRAP}} and {{sc2|BATH}} were often not the same, most consistently a feature of the New England upper class, the Boston Brahmins, but variably also shared by the New York City elite and possibly other Northern American elite speakers born in the 19th century. But unlike in RP, the {{sc2|BATH}} vowel does not retract and merge with the back vowel of {{sc2|PALM}} {{IPA|[ɑ]}}. It is only lowered from the near-open vowel {{IPA|[æ]}} to the fully open vowel {{IPA|[a]}}.
  • Father–bother variability: The "a" in father is traditionally unrounded, while the "o" in bother may be rounded, like in RP. Therefore, father and bother may fail to rhyme for some speakers, in New England for example, but it rhymes for others, like Franklin Roosevelt, who merged the two vowels.Urban, Mateusz (2021). [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357134848 "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American Theatre Standard: The low vowels"]. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2021(4), 227-245.
  • Lot–cloth split: Speakers like Franklin Roosevelt tended to have a {{sc2|LOT}}-{{sc2|CLOTH}} split, with the {{sc2|CLOTH}} vowel aligning to the {{sc2|THOUGHT}} vowel. This deviates from modern RP, which has a merger.
  • Thought–force variability: The vowels in thought and force–north are possibly distinguished by some ({{IPA|[ɔː]}} versus {{IPA|[ɔə]}}). But Franklin Roosevelt and the Boston Brahmins often merged {{sc2|THOUGHT}} and {{sc2|FORCE}}, and their vowel was often {{IPA|[ɔə]}}, which is more diphthongal than in RP.
  • Variability in happy tensing: Like in conservative RP, the vowel {{IPA|/i/}} at the end of words such as "happy" {{IPA|[ˈhæpɪ]}} ({{Audio|en-ma-happy.ogg|listen|help=no}}), "Charlie", "sherry", "coffee", etc. is not necessarily tensed and is pronounced with the kit vowel {{IPA|[ɪ]}}, rather than the fleece vowel {{IPA|[i]}}. Some speakers, though, including John F. Kennedy and certain Boston Brahmins, did participate in happy tensing.
  • Dropping of {{IPA|/j/}} rarely occurs—only after {{IPA|/r/}}, and optionally after {{IPA|/s/}} and {{IPA|/l/}}, but not elsewhere. The word duke, for instance, is pronounced like upper-class British {{IPA|en|djuːk|generic=yes}} and neither like middle-class British {{IPA|en|dʒuːk|generic=yes}} (the first variant versus the second one {{Audio|en-uk-duke.ogg|here|help=no}}) nor like GA {{IPA|en|duk|generic=yes||en-us-duke.ogg}}. Similarly, dew is not a homophone of either do {{IPA|[duː]}} or Jew {{IPA|[dʒuː]}}. All of this mirrors (conservative) RP.
  • Intervocalic {{IPA|/t/}} is sometimes preserved (thus, more fully pronounced in a word like waiter, so that it does not sound exactly like wader), avoiding the GA phenomenon of flapping in some speakers.
  • As in RP and some American East Coast dialects like New York City English, but unlike GA, vowel distinctions before {{IPA|/r/}} persist. Therefore, no Mary–marry–merry merger or hurry-furry merger occurs; each of those words has a distinct vowel sound, so that none of them rhyme.
  • In the following table, Northeastern elite accents fit under the "Traditional American" column:

{{English -or- table}}

class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

|+American and British comparison of lexical sets with low vowels

! rowspan="2" |KEYWORD

! colspan="3" |US

! colspan="1" |UK

General American

!Boston

!Northeastern elite

!Received Pronunciation

TRAP

|rowspan="2" |æ

|colspan="3" |æ

BATH

|a~æ

|a~ɑ~æ

|rowspan="3"|ɑ

START

|ɑɹ

| rowspan="2" |a

|a~ɑ

PALM

| rowspan="2" |ɑ

| ɑ

LOT

| rowspan="3" |ɒ

| ɑ~ɒ

| ɒ

CLOTH

| rowspan="2" |ɔ~ɑ

| colspan="2" |ɒ~ɔ

THOUGHT

|colspan="2" |ɔ

References

{{reflist}}

{{English dialects}}

Category:English language in North America

Category:Culture of the Northeastern United States

Category:Upper class culture in Massachusetts

Category:Upper class culture in New York (state)

Category:Upper class culture in Pennsylvania

Category:Sociolects