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From BookSmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWhorter, and I want you to listen to this.

I doubt the thing's going to live very long. Why, you'd be surprised. I mean, my mother's turtle,

outlived her. He's taken care of, sure. You feed it and give it clean wood or make sure it's not

swimming in his own felt. It's for my grandson. He's for and has trouble focusing on tasks.

That was from the newish series mayor of East Town. That was Kate Winslet as the mayor

protagonist talking. And you know, if you want to be picky, and of course we don't, except

just for this episode, we do,

there was something a little bit off about that line in terms of the pronunciation.

And the reason we're going to be picky about that on this show is because finally,

I want to do an episode devoted to the famous Philly accent, the Philadelphia accent. Finally,

Philadelphia show or movie actually takes the trouble to have people talking the way people

actually talk in that city. Generally, if something's in Philadelphia, people either sound like

they're from Los Angeles or there's this idea that people in Philadelphia must talk like New Yorkers because New York is close, and,

you know, you figure, well, Rocky must have sounded kind of like he was from New York because

Sylvester Stallone looked like he was a refugee from a Scorsese movie. But no, there is a very

distinct Philadelphia accent, and how do I know? Well, as many of you

know, I grew up in Philadelphia. I grew up in Philadelphia in the 1970s and 80s, and the accent,

the grand old accent, is actually fading now, but I'm old enough to have been raised within it,

...