"... November 1, 1989. Purse your lips a moment. Leave them in a slightly protruding oval, with your jaw and your tongue too poised for a fight, of sorts, against articulation. Your hands should just follow naturally now, palms upward, in a kind of perpetual complaint against nothing in particular and everything at once, because 'Dis is New Yawk, and dat’s how yoo tawk.' There’s a sweet and singular arrogance to the sound of New Yawkese, and the very posture of its pronunciation — the tongue slack and lascivious beneath the mouth’s alveolar ridge in what one speech specialist has described as a 'vertical dialect' — offers a perfect simulacrum of its speakers and their city: the height and hard edge of it, the blend of street-smart swagger and riotous impatience that makes two words of two sentences: Jeet? Did you eat? Skweet. Let’s go eat. ..."
Voice - 7 Days: The Slow Death of the New York Accent
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