Two suggestions for two of the above comments:
pidgin -- not pigeon -- languages
phony as a 3 -- not 2 -- dollar bill

A day too late ... My grandmother, Anne Ruth Rouslin (nee Rosen), born in Providence RI, 1892; died in Providence RI, 1984, routinely said "amn't". She was very proud that she was a graduate of Hope Street High School, at a time when most boys and girls did not finish high school.

There is no British accent. Many regional accents in UK exist that were non-RP, this has to be the silliest pre-occupation, pushed by Mr Crystal. I'd suggest that your commentators spend time listening to accents, because they have no idea what an Irish accent sounds like.

Why did you not get a real linguist for this! People don't just change a dialect to another as she seems to insinuate. They may have moved to use an already in use somewhere in the culture dialect but they are not just pulled from the air. Get a book on the history of English, please.

Flushing comes from the Dutch town name Vlissingen. This is a town in Holland and the Dutch nameapplied tor what the British renamed Flushing, Queens. To this day, many British still call Vlissingen in Holland Flishing.

A lover of good grammar myself, I was wondering if it could be explained why after "if" the conjugation of "I" changes from singular to plural, making "if I were" correct and "if I was" incorrect. Past English teachers have told me that this is correct, but none have ever provided an explanation. Thanks!

"The town of Vlissingen on Long Island was named after a town in the Netherlands. It would become much better known, however, by the corrupted English form of the name: Flushing."

(from http://www.nnp.org/vtour/regions/Long_Island/breuckelen.html)

Flushing is named for the Dutch town of Vlissingen.
Interesting story about the name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlissingen

Flushing has the English version of the Dutch coastal city of Vlissingen....it means "flowing out," I believe.

Patricia O'Connor just touched on something I've heard before — namely, that some linguistic features (especially of pigeon tongues) developed as needed to conduct trade. So Boston as a major port might have developed some sounds to facilitate communication with those who formed the largest trading partner.

very entertaining segment!

Re: comment about Johnny Depp.
Pirate accent IS West Country English.

A while ago, someone asked you why the names Yeats and Keats are pronounced differently, and, as I recall, you said you didn't know. I thought I knew at the time, since I'd learned in grad school that the cause of this difference was something called "the great vowel shift," which occurred over several centuries. Does the research you mention today replace this research into the great vowel shift, or does it, perhaps, include it? I'd be grateful for your comments on this.

Ain't you ignoring the fact that there is no such things as A British accent and that Shakespeare's accent could have been a lot different than those of the accents of the actors of his time and of anyone besdies himsdelf that was directing his plays.

Great program. Can "original pronunciation" provide guidance to actors portraying commoners in Renaissance festivals?

Two questions: is the accents you hear from the people from the Boston area linked to how old English was spoken?

And why is the Democratic Party sometime called the Democrat Party? The latter sound more like a prejortive.
.

Why not follow up here in the comment thread...instead of e-mailing?

Then we could all see the results, continue these delicious conversations!

I was led to believe that there are isolated pockets in the Easter US, tangier island in the chesapeake, parts of north eastern North Carolina and even parts of eastern long island that have remnants of an Elizabethan accent. for instance, I is pronounced oi.

also British pop music always seems to sound American in its pronunciation.

I've been tiring of the ubiquity of all of these affected British accents that have blanketed our culture over the last few decades. It was fun in the old Monty Python days some decades back, when witty British comedic irony was relatively new and novel, but it wears thin already.

I'm now so happy that I've retained my trusty old "low class" Brooklyn accent despite all the pressures to get rid of it. At least it is authentic, and not like the phony, "high falutin Queens English" that we now are learning is actually as phony as the $2 bill. It was just affected by the upper classes trying to separate themselves from the rest.

When did "Litrally", "Vetrin", and "Vetrinarian" become acceptable?

Thanks,

Joan

As much as I love President Obama, it "drives me crazy" when he uses the long pronunciation of "a" all the time instead of "uh".

How about the fact that educated Brits say "et" for "ate", as in "He et dinner?"

Could Ms. O'Conner comment on the recent (last 5 years) phenomenon of people answering a direct question by beginning with "So,..." Example: Leonard asks an author "What is your new book about?" and the author responds, "So, it's about a time in my life when...." Lots of people have adopted this taciturn way of answering a question.

Patricia - please confirm that "often" and "forehead" are pronounced with a silent T and silent H, respectively, i.e. "Off-en" and "For-ed"

So are we all going to be saying "aks" for "ask" in a century? Or were they say "aks" 400 years ago?

So what is going with the use of "addicting" rather than addictive? As in the cookies are so good...they're addicting. It's driving me crazy. Please tell me it's not becoming correct.

The F train has a recorded message saying "This train will NOT stop on Smith/9thSt in BOTH directions". Is that correct? Shouldn't it be, "This train will NOT stop on Smith/9thSt in EITHER direction".???

I notice folks nowadays often don't know when to use "burned" vs. "burnt"....any comment/explanation of which is which?

The CD in question, is not the "first of its kind," as playshakespeare.com reports (quoted at the British Library page). There was an LP recording issued in the 1950s in conjunction with the publication of Helge Kökeritz's Shakespeare's Pronunciation (Yale UP 1953) on which Kökeritz read various speeches in his version of Shakespearean pronunciation (in the book it is notated as a phonetic alphabet). It would be fascinating to compare the two recordings, since Crystal's work is based on Kökeritz. I have yet to find the Kökeritz recordings on-line, unfortunately. Would love to know if they've been posted somewhere. Kökeritz also did pioneering work on Chaucer that was used for some long-gone LP recordings of Chaucer.

My 6 yr old asked about the term "offhand" (I wasn't wearing my watch and he asked what time it was. I told him "offhand I can't tell you" then spent a few minutes trying to explain the joke).

Did Patricia not say in a previous show that before America was colonized, England's dialect sounded a lot like ours today? If so, why did their dialect change?

I've read that many pronunciations we think of as characteristically African-American are actually closer to old and Shakespearean English than the "standard" American pronunciation.

My Father's family had roots in the northern coast of Newfoundland (Nfld), Canada (Twillingate). He was a professor with colleagues who studied linguistics. They would do field research in Nfld where they would find unique English dialects. This was due to the very early migration patterns. Their dialect was not impacted by the vowel shift that occurred when George took the throne and changed polite speech.

I would like to ask Patricia O'Conner her opinion of how the phrase "I feel like" has come to replace "I think". As in "I feel like there are Starbucks on every corner". That kind of thing.