Speakeasy

How to tahk Noo Engl'n and Ruth Penka

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

Years ago, when I lived in California, I prompted a mirthful response from a friend when I said I was planning to bring a vase of flowers to my aunt's house. Of course, what I said was "vahz" and "awnt," which these Westerners found quaint, affected, and reminiscent of the speech patterns of Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers movies. And here I'd gone to all kinds of trouble not to use the word "wicked" as an adjective of approval or of reproach! Of course, once back home, I heard native dialect and pronunciation to my ear's content.

Here in New England, we have a variety of phonemes, words and phrases that are indiginous to the area. Some words date back hundreds of years and can be traced to a British origin, like angleworm and pollywog for earthworm and tadpole. (Indigenous tribes contributed a few non-locational words, like "no-see-um," for any tiny, biting fly, which was first recorded, in 1848, by Thoreau in Maine Woods.) But many other words and phrases, as well as our, well, notable pronunciation, are unique. Food, for example. In Pennsylvania, what we call a submarine is named according to the temperature at which it's served, says Linda Paiste, an editor at Rodale Publishing and native of the state. "Grinders are hot subs, hoagies are cold subs," she explains. Whereas in Massachusetts, "grinder" and "submarine" are interchangeable. Some delis and sandwich shops still tip a chef's toque to the '50s if they advertise an "atomic sub."

"The words for that big sandwich are very local," says John Wilson, English professor at Holy Cross, who's lived in Worcester for the past 30 years. "And the words for a milkshake -- a frappe or cabinet." But New England, specifically Massachusetts, also has a special way with elocution. "I remember coming to Worcester for the first time," says Wilson, "and going to church and hearing someone reading scripture: `If today you should heah the words of the Lawd, hahden naht yah hahts.' I thought, `oh, this is a different country.'"

Wilson has also noted a phonetic embellishment in Worcester, where extra syllables are added, as in "p'yanick" for "panic," and "p'yatun," for "pattern." And of course, we're famous for removing the `r's and putting them in different places. Though not trained as a linguist, Wilson has plenty of experience with older versions of the language. "Part of it is that when the `r' gets dropped out of the final syllable, the final syllable gets lightened, so the first syllable gets prolonged as a kind of compensation. That's also happened in Middle English and Modern English." Naturally, much of this phonetic improvisation has mixed results. "Some of my friends who came from other parts of the country, named their children in unfortunate ways," he says drolly. "Like `Monica,' who became `Moniker.'"

Writer Mary Caulfield of Cambridge, who was born outside of New England has a family example of syllabic elongation. "My dad, who was born in Salem, of Irish parents, said, `the-aye-ter' for `theater'. I guess it could be labeled as ignorant, but there's something charmingly archaic about it; I think it's closer to the Romance pronunciation of the cognates, as in the French `the-a-tre'. But really, it's not the heat, it's the humidity."

Sometimes we remove an `r' (specifically, a "post-vocalic" `r') without sticking it anywhere else. Elsewhere in the country, people eat frankfurters and hamburgers, but here we have frankfurts, or just franks, and hamburg. But you don't have to go out of New England to encounter different speech patterns. Professor Julie Roberts of the University of Vermont at Burlington specializes in sociolinguistics and studies the communication styles of Vermont's rural population. "There's a feature called a glottal stop, which all of us use when we start a word with a vowel, like `a'," she says. "It's a little breath before we start speaking." But in Vermont, the glottal stop is for the sound `t' rather than `a'. "Rather like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady saying `baw'ul,' for `bottle," she explains. "They don't say the `t'. They cut the sound off in the back of their throats. `Mih'ehn' for `mitten,' `kih'en' for `kitten,' `mou'en' for `mountain.' I have two children who picked this up immediately."

Perhaps the source of this particular production quirk goes far back in time. In Vermont, the influences are more Scottish then English, because the original settlers were Scots, says Roberts. Though Vermont had, and has, a sizable Native-American population north of Burlington (the Abenakis, who have their own language), few words -- save place names, of course -- have entered the lexicon. "Winooski River is Native American," says Roberts. Then again, there are some older words that may have disappeared for good. Do you say "darning needle" for "dragonfly"? Or "orts" for "garbage"? Maybe it's time to resurrect the lost or mislaid words. Wilson comments, "the poet Stanley Kunitz has a wonderful line in an essay where he says, `a poet is a man who wants to swim in Lake Chargoggagoggmanchagagoggchaubunagungamaug, and not in Webster Lake."

CONGRATULATIONS and bon voyage to Ruth Penka, who for the past seven years served as director of Fitchburg Historical Society. She'll be the new executive director of ARTSWorcester. Under her leadership, the society has offered a variety of cultural events, ranging from historical reenactments (having former Fitchburg mayoral candidates take the roles of their 19th-century equivalents, for instance) to lectures by a variety of speakers, including Fitchburg resident Don Featherstone, designer of the famed plastic flamingo. Her legacy also includes some fine documentation; the society issued a number of informative and popular brochures and pamphlets, including "A Guide to Fitchburg's Neighborhoods," in which Penka compared Fitchburg of today to Fitchburg of the century before, and "Fitchburg, A Walking and Driving Tour." "I've been very proud of the publications, our Golden Age of Fitchburg catalogue, and our brochures, which have certainly filled a void in the region," she says.

Penka managed to do all this and keep the society in the black. During her tenure, the endowment was septupled. "They're now financially solvent and will not have to close the doors, which was a concern when I came," she says.

Penka doesn't view her new position as a career shift so much as a natural progression. "I was trained as a historical museum curator," she says. "and started out very object-oriented. What's happened over the past 10 years is, I've become more people-oriented and program-oriented." Her last day in Fitchburg will be December 16, and though she'll be missed, Worcester is fortunate to have an experienced arts advocate on board.

Sally Cragin is now driving a Honder Civic.

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