Massachusetts 17

Listen to Massachusetts 17, a 74-year-old man from Framingham and Medway, Massachusetts, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject. 

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 74

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 08/04/1950

PLACE OF BIRTH: Framingham, Massachusetts

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Native American/Caucasian (Eastern European ancestry)

OCCUPATION: retired contractor

EDUCATION: associate’s degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The speaker has resided only in eastern Massachusetts: He grew up in Framingham and has lived his entire adult life in Medway.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: none

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Abbey Miller

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/09/2024

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

One of my, uh, Christmas surprises, or, not surprises, was when I wanted to have skis for my, for a Christmas present, and, uh, Christmas morning I come down and I see this long, tall box, and I said, “Oh great, I got my skis!” And I’m opening the box, opening the box, throwing the paper all over the place and everything else, and much to my surprise, I got something that — I had no clue why, but it was a pole lamp, a three-swivel brass pole lamp. And my f—jaw coulda been dropped right to the floor. And I asked my mom, “What happened to the skis?” “You’d break your leg. Besides, a lamp is much better for you. Help you with school.”

The only thing that I can remember doing on a weekend is Sunday morning: Nantasket Beach. It was a ritual, when my parents wanted to bake themselves in the sun, for some unknown reason. But that was it. I was able to once in a while bring a friend and, uh, but, other than that, uh, not much, uh, on weekends; we didn’t really do weekends; we didn’t spend two days here or, or whatever; it was just one day, day trip.

Sports. Lots of sports, both football and baseball. Football mostly was my favorite. I loved to hit. I loved the speed. And I was better at it. And then got into high school and continued playing football. Till I got hurt and missed play — I really missed playing my senior year. I really wanted to play. That’s for sure.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Barrie Kreinik

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/09/2024

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject drops final Rs in unstressed syllables (e.g., “ove[r] the place,” “that’s fo[r] su[r]e,” “break you[r] leg”), which is characteristic of eastern Massachusetts. Words that would be pronounced with a short “aw” sound in Standard American or a long “ah” sound in General American are pronounced with a combination of those two sounds (“awuh”) that is also typical of eastern Massachusetts, such as “box,” which here has the same vowel sound as the preceding words “long” and “tall.” Additionally, the subject frequently drops the “g” in “-ing” endings, as in “somethin[g]” and “doin[g].”

COMMENTARY BY: Barrie Kreinik

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/09/2024

The archive provides:

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• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

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