New York 8 ©2000 International Dialects of English Archive
Comma Gets A Cure ©2000 Douglas N. Honorof, Jill McCullough & Barbara Somerville. All rights reserved.

Recorded by Alexandra Goodman on Oct 15, 2000; edited by Eric Armstrong on Oct 30, 2000.
Recorded in Chicago, IL.
Place of Birth: The Bronx, NY
DOB: 9/23/43
Ethnicity: Jewish
Raised: The Bronx, NY
Level of Ed.: High School
Places lived (50mi+ from place of birth): Greenwich, CT, Chicago IL, Interlochen MI.
Current Occupation: Real Estate

Notes (by Eric Armstrong)
A light Bronx/Jewish dialect.

No R-coloring on -er endings : ", mirror, other, lawyer, mother" (though R-coloring creeps in before a pause)
Linking R: "My brother-and I"
Strong R on -AIR -OR: " Sarah, Perry, Square, rare," "force"
stressed ER vowels have R-coloring (begins with sound in "hut"): "Reversed, Nurse, earlier, her, were"
Strong rounding (and a slight offglide) on the AW vowel: "office, thought, strong, cost, daughter"
Final Schwa NOT like "hut": "Comma (resists intrusive R), Polo (almost sounds like Polar)"
-eye diphthong very bright (begins with ash): "right side"
-OW diphthong very twangy (begins with ash): "bear Mountains"
-Oh dipthong begins unrounded (begins with hut): "Old, go"
Ash before Double R: "Harrison"
Yod Dropping: "tune
-y endings have onglide: "movie"
Intermediate A - onglide into ash: "bath"
Note upward inflections (particularly when listing things at the beginning)

Transcription:
We grew up in uh 66 W. Gunhill Rd. right across the street from a beautiful golf course, so we had a golf course on one side and a um park on the other. My brother and I were very close growing up, um, we used to do a lot of things together. We used to play in the house, we would make up stories and poems and all kinds of fun stuff. And my Dad, my mother worked, and on Sunday my Dad used to take us, every Sunday we would pick a place to go and we would go and have the day, my brother, my Dad, and I. And one, one, one Sunday we'd go ice skating, we'd go up to Bear Mountains and we would ice skate up in Bear Mountains and that was a lot of fun. And then another Sunday my Dad would take us downtown and we'd go see a movie that was playing at the Paramont Theatre, or another Sunday we'd go to the Bronx Zoo and we'd kinda have fun doing that. And one Sund... Every, actually each week one of would get a choice, we would pick, who would go where, and where... whoever picked the choice, that's where we would go and we were pretty good about that. And we used to have a great time and it was a lot of fun. And it's interesting because as... I got married and I had two children, I have a son or a daughter, we used to do the same thing: every Sunday, we would pick... Ali or John would get to pick where they would like to go for a, um, a Sunday.