People who are not from around here tend to think there's a "Boston accent" — you know, the broad "a", the dropped "r" — but anybody who's been around Boston for any time can tell you there's no such thing as a Boston accent.  It varies by neighborhood and nation of origin.

With Martin Scorcese's newfound fascination with Boston as a dramatic setting in movies like The Depahted and Shudduh Island, it's ironically the South Boston Irish accent that has become shorthand for Boston born and bred.  

But I work with Italian-Americans — the kind you only find in old East Coast enclaves anymore.  These are folks who still live in highly concentrated neighborhoods where everyone's name — first and last — ends in a vowel.  The kids go to Salesians after class at Savio.

For a nicely assimilated midwesterner with almost nothing left of his distant heritage but a funny last name no one knows how to say, it's like discovering a lost world.  And because I'm at a "voke school" and a lot of these isolated urban tribes are firmly rooted in the working class, I get to hear every subtle — and not so subtle — variation on the English language Boston boasts. 

Today, we had one of those hot Black Irish boys from Southie with a local accent so thick you'd think he was auditioning for Ben Affleck's next flick — gotta say, there's something very primal about that broad "a" — trying to get directions to class from my Italian-American officemate from Eastie.

They could've used a translator.  Seriously.  The issue was only resolved with a lot of International sign language.

I share an office with another Italian-American — this one from Medford — or Meffa, as it's locally known.  She has a whole different take on English from her Eastie officemate.  They can still understand each other, but every once in a while the difference gets pronounced, so to speak.

I noticed it the other day when I was telling them about having had gnocchi — which I pronounce, Midwestern-style, nokie — for dinner a couple of weeks ago at Coppa in the South End (great little neighborhood place, highly recommended). 

They both cook — like cook — like moms used to back in the day, while the kids were playing basketball at Salesians.  And we often exchange recipes.  So, of course, they wanted to know all about my...

...nyahkies, said my Eastie officemate.

...nawkies, the Meffahdian corrected.

And, yeah, it's plural with an "s".  Whaddya gonna do aboudit?

So if you want to know where exactly in Greater Boston that accent's from, try the Gnocchi Test.  Remember, in Meffa it's nawkies, in Eastie it's nyahkies, and in Southie it's WTF?