Three episodes into Mare of Easttown, I finally heard it—“asshole,” pronounced not as most of the country does as “aahhshole” but as we do in the Greater Delco area: “aehisshole.” This was Helen Fahey fighting with her daughter Mare and saying, “She’s in a giant asshole mood tonight!”
I always thought the word “asshole” the way we say it here was emblematic of our accent. Hearing someone from the Philadelphia area yell “Hey, aehisshole!” at you is much more effective at threatening than someone from Nevada or wherever yell “Hey, aahhshole!” And we should be proud of that.
How do you even write this stuff out phonetically? I read someone say the Delco accent is like speaking with a smile the whole time and it’s kind of true. People in normal parts of the country say words like “ass” with their mouths more vertical, while we say it with our mouths horizontal, like we’re smiling—which is kind of lovely, isn’t it? With words like “no,” normal people sort of purse their mouths, while we kind of grimace and say the word in two syllables: “Noe-wah.”
Anyway, Jean Smart showed off her acquired Delco accent pretty well this week. Her “abaowt” and “figure aowt” were pretty good. Her “Oe-wah, cut it aowt, Mare! Jesus Christ!” was as Delco as Skate Odyssey. Her pronunciation of “Haverford” seemed weird. I think that’s a word we would all say the same regardless of accent.
The MVP of accents this week was Evan Peters. Zabel’s Delco comes AOWT when he’s drunk, hitting on Mare and getting weepy about the future and the case he solved as a county detective in Upper Darby. (Unless things have changed since I was a reporter, I don’t believe Delaware County has a police force. There’s park police but they wouldn’t solve a murder.) Zabel was heavily into the “O” sound. I liked his “gets in his cawr” talk. He was completely convincing as somebody you’d see in a bar in Ridley or somewhere.
Kate Winslet was good again on accents but there was a discrepancy. She said “pass code” with the “paahs” in the more generic American accent, while “coede” was in the Delco talk. This brings me back to words like “ass.” People in the Philadelphia area say words like “bad” and “mad” not with the open mouth of the rest of the country, but with more that grimace. The exception is “sad,” which we say like everybody else, not rhyming it with “mad” or “bad.” Winslet’s “house” also needs a dash of Delco. It’s “haowse.”
With all the cell phone shenanigans this week, there were a lot of “phoene” repetitions. With those firearms dogs from the county, there was also a lot of “cawl aowt the dawgs,” which was accurate.
I’m trying to see if I can spot any local places and I’m drawing a blank. I don’t recognize the park. Did I mishear or are they calling it Brandywine Park? I associate that with Delaware but I guess there could be another Brandywine Park further up the crick. I don’t recognize St. Michael’s or that bar. Still, there’s plenty of local flavor, with Frank passed out drunk under that Eagles blanket that everybody around here has.
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