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Holy shit. That video covers so many of my fantasies it is not even funny. Thanks for posting!
fredski49 said:
Not so weird.
What's odd about the mutated "Brooklyn accent" (so-called) is that much of it has its roots in Cockney English.
When Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever fluctuates back and forth from Brooklynese and her Cockney "past life" accent she says one line to Yves Montand near the very end:
"Didja learn that from me"??
It's absolutely indistinguishable from a lower class English accent but she's actually saying it with her native Brooklyn inflection. There's simply no difference. So it's not surprising that guy's accent sounds that way to you.
Remember, it's only within the last two decades that Long Island and the burroughs of New York have begun pronouncing the r at the end of a word.
It was, until then, "muthah" for "mother"
Here on Cape Cod the older generations still call it "clam chowdah". And "Ovah theyah on the chayah" is actually "over there on the chair". Similarly many of us use the adjective "wicked" to convey "extremely" rather than its conventional meaning.
My mother to me when I was little: "Deah? (two syllables) Did you have a good time?" Oh mummy, it was wicked!"
What I was saying was "extremely".
Nobody gets that now so it's lost in general parlance. Also, we never "put the dog down" when it needed to be euthanized. We "put the dog to sleep".
This accent (and many of its idiosyncracies) is East Anglian in derivation, however much of it is being lost to the influx of the media and the transient nature of American culture.
Before too very long we'll all sound like John Kerry who intentionally lost his New England (or 'Hahvahd' accent) to mainstream himself
In Old Boston and down the southern coast across the penninsula of Cape Cod and greater Buzzards Bay:
we take "bahths" and say "cahn't" for "can't"
my mother STILL goes "dahncing" with my fahther
we call it the "ahfternoon"
it's NOT eight-thirty, it's "hahlf pahst eight"
Do not confuse Brooklynese with "talkin' Bawstin" either. They are (or were) entirely separate dialects.
Oh, and I was raised to call them "toe MAH' toes" and I'll do it until they plant me no matter who sees fit to "correct" my pronunciation.