Pennsylvania 6

Listen to Pennsylvania 6, a 61-year-old man from South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also Los Angeles, California, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 61

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1943

PLACE OF BIRTH: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: actor

EDUCATION: N/A

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was raised in South Philadelphia but moved to New York City when he was 23. He spent about six years there. At the time of this interview, he had been living in Los Angeles, California, for 30 years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

He admits to moderating his dialect somewhat for his work as an actor.

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

RECORDED BY: Joel Goldes

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/05/2004

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Philadelphia, South Philadelphia. It’s, uh, primarily an Italian community, but there are all different sections. There’s, uh, Irish, which is on Second Street, that they call Two Street. There’s, uh, uh, some Black, Polish, German, but primarily Italian. South Philadel- [slight interruption by interviewer], yeah. Uh, Eighth and Christian was Italian. It was predo-, uh, predominantly Italian, all over, South Philly, except for, like, the, the, the lesser streets, like Third Street, ’n’ Second Street, ’n’ First Street, ’n’ Water, ’n Front Street. They were predomi-, uh, predominantly Irish, an’ they used to fight a lot, for territory.

Uh, what was — 23, I moved to New York, Manhattan. Thirty-first an’ Third; yeah, it’s called Murray Hill. Eh, fourth-floor walk-up. Uh, my dentist’s wife got me the apartment. I told her I was getting married, an’ it was a rent-control. So, when we moved into the apartment — you’re not gonna believe this — it was 43 dollars a month. This is three small rooms, I mean — but the closet — it was, like, a small bedroom, that was so small we used for a closet, a small kitchen, and a small living room that we slept on a sofa bed. An’ it was a fourth-floor walk-up an’ we — it started at 43, an’ by the time we left, it was about 75 dollars. Up, please.

So, listen, I went back to New York about, uh, two years ago, an’ I went to the old apartment. Y’know, I went back to all the old haunts. An’ I went back to the apartment, an’, um, I knocked on the door, an’ this guy answered the door. And I told him, y’know, “I had lived in this apartment. This i- is it all right if I look around?” An’ I went, an’ I looked in. It looked worse than it did when I lived there, ’cause we fixed it up. Y’know, I fixed it up for my wife. She came from South Philadelphia, Italian, an’ she expected — she grew up in a house. She never lived in an apartment. So, uh, it looked better when I — when I lived there. An’ they raised their rent to fifteen hundred dollars a month. [snicker]  It looked exactly like it looked at — when I was paying 43. So, fifteen hundred. Just, uh, uh, Philadelphia an’, and, uh, New York an’ LA. And I moved to New York in 197- I moved to New York in, uh, 1968, an’ then I moved to, uh, LA in 1974. [Overlap with interviewer] Yeah, uh [speaks in dialect]. Eh, Y’ wanna go for a walk? What a’ you talkin’ about? And, uh, uh, I do this because, uh, that’s the way I was taught. Atlantic, Itlantic, yeah, we called it “the shore.” Yeah, I’m goin’– y’ wanna go down the shore? Y’ wanna take a ride down the shore for a cuppa coffee?

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/09/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

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

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• 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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