About 15 minutes into the first episode of Mare of Easttown, I finally heard Kate Winslet say it—the key word that tells us we’re hearing the Delco accent:
“Feed it and give it clean wooder.”
Got it? Not wahter. Wooder. Where I come from, H2O is wooder. I know what the rest of the country says but I absolutely refuse to change the way I say it. You’d need the jaws of life to take my Delco accent away from me—it’s intractable.
This will be a different type of TV review, not so much of the content but the accent. (Although the first episode was good and it’s probably something I’d watch anyway. I mean, Kate Winslet and Jean Smart? SOLD.) It’s the Philadelphia/Delco accent that so many actors have trouble with, and that many don’t even attempt. It’s those tortured vowels that mark me and people like me as from a certain area, like how the British spies gave themselves away to the Nazis in the bar scene in Inglourious Basterds. So this will be a weekly accent critique for as long as it amuses me.
It must be said upfront that some of the articles I’ve read about this show are wrong: It’s not Delaware County. Easttown Township is in Chester County, just across the border from Newtown and Radnor townships. I guess calling it a Delco accent is more evocative than Chesco so we’ll stick with that. I don’t know why they picked “Easttown” for the title. Maybe they think it tested well as vaguely East Coast. I think Mare of Folcroft would have been a fun title. I don’t know Easttown but apparently they shot it on location so I guess it’s accurate. I liked the little touches of local things: The mention of “my sister’s place in Ridley,” the Flyers shirt and Phillies trinkets, “the bottom of the Delaware River,” taking an injured person to Riddle, etc.
Anyway, the accent. Kate Winslet’s was pretty good! She’s got the elongated “O” sound down pat. You could hear it in “oeverdoese,” “hoemeoewner,” “oever and oever” and in the preview for next week, “hoepe.” (I don’t know how to render these phonetically, but you get the gist.) I liked how she pronounced her long “I” sounds, like “alriieght” or “Friiedie niieght.” Her “come awwihnn” was very good.
Winslet was good but a few things either need work or I don’t have enough evidence to judge yet. I’d like to hear “dooiter” for “daughter” and “Dawwihn” for “Dawn.” Her pronunciation of words like “house” or “tasks” or “asses” was too mid-America and not close to how we talk.
A kid on the show made a mistake and said “at the creek.” I have always thought that around here, if you’re speaking generically, it’s a “crick.” You’d only say “creek” if it’s a specific creek, like Darby Creek. (I default to “crick” for certain things, like I’ll call the show Schitt’s Crick and not Schitt’s Creek.) But Steve told me not to criticize a kid actor, so I guess I’ll give him a break.
So Winslet did pretty well in tackling a tough accent and I genuinely appreciate that she took the time to sound like people in our little corner of the world. There are a few things I’d like to hear from her in coming weeks. I’d like to hear the multisyllabic “yeah” and “no”—“yeea-ahh” and “noe-wah.” I’d also like to hear words like “ass” as more “aeass” and less like “ahhh-ss.” Then, for extra credit, she can try to master the following:
· “See you damorra.”
· “I’m eating Reesee’s Peecees.”
· “It costs fi’dollars.”
· “Up the shtreet.”
· “Wool” (for “well”)
· “It’s in the front pahlor.”
See yous next week!
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