Do you park your car in Harvard Yard or do you pahk your cah in Hahvuhd Yahd? If you’re from anywhere in the vicinity of the Boston area, you’ve probably heard this phrase or some version of it at some point. In fact, it’s pretty much a guarantee that someone somewhere will ask you to demonstrate your Boston accent like you’re a trained chimpanzee whose sole purpose is to amuse the person who probably has an accent thicker than you do. Unfortunately, when you are presented with this question, you really only have two options: get mad and refuse or say the phrase. However, if you would like to shock and awe all of the people who ask to hear your accent, you may want to consider either learning to eliminate your accent (which will really shock them when you say the phrase in a way they are totally not expecting) or you can embrace your Boston heritage and brush up on your accent (thereby making sure that your accent is wicked pissa).
First, if you would like to lose your accent, you may want to consider taking a course at the Boston Center for Adult Education (BCAE). This is because the BCAE is offering a course entitled “Lose Your Boston Accent” from 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. tomorrow (Saturday, November 21, 2015). This course, which is primarily designed for actors and other professionals who may need to speak in a more generic dialect, will teach you to pronounce your r’s, pronounce certain vowel sounds differently, and lose some of the Boston slang we’ve all come to know and love. For more information on the Lose Your Boston Accent course at the BCAE, please visit the Boston Center for Adult Education’s website.
If, on the other hand, you would like to embrace your heritage and really work on improving your accent, there’s no better way than spending some time in the city itself. And, if you would like to spend some time in the city itself and enjoy everything Boston has to offer, you may want to check out Boston CityPASS. Boston CityPASS is a program that will allow you to buy a booklet of tickets to some of the most popular museums in Boston at an extremely discounted price. In fact, this program will allow you to get tickets to four attractions, including the Museum of Science, the Museum of Fine Arts, the New England Aquarium, and either the Harvard Museum of Natural History or the Skywalk Observatory for a single fee that’s pretty close to half the price you would normally pay to get into all four museums. For more information on the Boston CityPASS program, please visit the Official Boston CityPASS website.
Photo credit: Bert Kaufmann / Foter.com / CC BY