Some native New Yorkers, the Times' Sam Roberts reports, are paying coaches to rid themselves of their New York accents. They drilled the newyawkese out of us in high school - at Brooklyn Prep - a Jesuit school in Crown Heights. (It closed in 1972, but is kept alive in memory by its most illustrious graduate and prominent burnisher of The Prep's virtues - John Sexton, now President of NYU.)
In our weekly classes Mr. O'Connell drilled us to banish the deez, dems and does, etc. " Pronounce the T's trippingly off the tongue, Gentlemen!", O'Connell our diction teacher instructed as we recited together, an unevenly motivated chorus.
Two of the drills I recall are:
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.
John Stuart Mill, by a mighty effort of the will, wrote principles of political economy.Unlearning to tawk like a New Yorker by Sam Roberts
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