NYT Shouts Out Heather Quinlan’s NY Accent Movie

By on November 19, 2010 1:36 pm in Celebrity Residents

The New York Times, obviously following the trend started by our Heather Quinlan, writes about the NY accent (“dialect” to you sticklers, OK?) today.  More to the point, they write about wanting to lose it as opposed to HQ’s homage to tawking like Fran Drescher:

New York Times: “The accent still exists in places like Staten Island or Bensonhurst or the Rockaways,” says the writer Pete Hamill, one of several New Yorkers interviewed for a documentary by Heather Quinlan called “If These Knishes Could Talk.” “However, it has changed in that it’s no longer the ‘dese, dem and dose’ and the ‘Thoidy-Thoid and Thoid’ that we think of.”

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  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Yay! And who’s that lucky guy putting the squeeze on HQ? He looks almost as old as me.

  • http://heatherquinlan.com Heather Quinlan

    Aww, thanks Claude! And that’s Dom, he gets a little amorous after a few Pinot Greejes.

  • Demonter

    There is a video series circulating on the web where a dialect coach instructs actors on the nuances of the “New York Accent”. She goes through the Mugs McGinnis routine: erl, boid, terlet, goil etc. which is archaic old New Yorkese that my grandparents spoke so long ago. Professionals in the field should listen to the current idiom instead of old films and archival episodes of The Bowery Boys. (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Halip R.I.P.)

  • AEB

    Heather, in my usual annoying belated way, got around belatedly to reading the Times piece. Great–many congrats!

    Was reminded of that line from “My Fair Lady”: “It;s ‘ow and ‘g’one’ that keep her in her place/Not her wretched clothes and dirty face”…..

  • http://heatherquinlan.com Heather Quinlan

    @Demonter – Good point. I saw West Side Story a few months ago, and it sounded bizarre hearing the actors talk about “goils” even though historically it fit. Maybe it was the actors.

    @AEB – T’anks! Now where the devil are my slippers … ?

  • Eddy de Lectron

    Heather, Thanks that was fun to watch… keep up the great work.