Southerners and New Yorkers pronouncing bird as "boid"

"In my day, one did not get OUT to the East Coast; one got BACK to the East Coast, and OUT to the West Coast!"

Oh how times change.

"In my day, one did not get OUT to the East Coast; one got BACK to the East Coast, and OUT to the West Coast!"

Haha, really? Even if you hadn't been born there or ever lived there or anything? Anyway, for me it's debatable whether I've ever been to the "East-Coast," as I've been to upsate New York (but not anywhere near this nation's biggest city), flown thru Dulles Airport (doesn't really count 'cause I never left the airport), and I've flown thru Atlanta (same thing). I've technically been in (driven thru on a family vacation when I was a kid, like 12 years ago) the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and once spent a week in Tennessee, but it's still debatable how "East-Coast" those are--I've certainly never been to any the big East-Coast cities and have never seen the Atlantic (except for when I was in Uruguay, of all places), so I'd love to do that someday. For me, the East Coast is a somewhat vague, fuzzy and very distant concept, so I'd like to change that by actually going and having some experiences there. Gotta get some money to do all this, tho--traveling can be expensive.

I watched re-runs of the Nanny the other day and Fran's mom pronounced DOG like /dowg/. /ow/ the dyphthong like in SO/sow/, to GO /t. gow/ It sounded very southern :)

The "boid" pronunciation (best transcribed as \b3@d\) only really exists in the speech of older New Yorkers. For anyone born after WWII, the most common pronunciation is \b3rd\ (note that this differs slightly from the most common general American pronunciation of \b@rd\).

Is \3rd\ (or \@rd\) the only thing that has become rhotic in a non-rhotic New Yorker accent? What about the Boston accent?

\3rd\ (or \@rd\) should be \3r\ (or \@r\) , above.

"Is \3rd\ (or \@rd\) the only thing that has become rhotic in a non-rhotic New Yorker accent? What about the Boston accent?"

Well, certainly there are New Yorkers who have adopted rhotic accents, but the /3/ sound is the only aspect of New York speech that has become rhotic in virtually ALL New Yorkers.

Same thing with Boston--/3/ has adopted some "r-coloring" in even the thickest Boston accents. That means that a typical Bostonian will make the standard /3/ sound, but with the tip of the tongue raised slightly toward the /r\/ position.

Deborah, Bugs Bunny is one of my favourite cartoon characters too and I enjoyed the wav links you posted.

I just love the NY accent. That show has span of American accents no doubt. Come to think of it, I think Granny from that show emigrated from Southern England, UK or thereabouts.

<<Same thing with Boston--/3/ has adopted some "r-coloring" in even the thickest Boston accents. That means that a typical Bostonian will make the standard /3/ sound, but with the tip of the tongue raised slightly toward the /r\/ position.>>

Yes, most non-rhotic people here in Massachusetts pronounce the R in words like "burr". Here are the pronunciations of a typical non-rhotic Massachusetts resident:

bar - /ba/
bear - /be@/
beer - /bi@/
bore - /bo@/
boor - /bu@/
burr - /b3`/

You'd sound a bit archaic (sort of like a Boston Brahmin) if you pronounced "burr" as /b3/.

(By the way, notice how "bar" is pronounced /ba/, rather than /bA/ as in a New York accent.)

Lazar, in your opinion, is rhoticism gradually replacing nonrhoticisim in Boston-area accents?

Yes, I think rhoticism is slowly advancing in Massachusetts, especially in the suburbs. Non-rhoticism is still very common, though.