a repeatedly asked question.

In this installment of Ask Jill, Jill answers a question individually queried by several different cyber-entities. Given Jill's aural fixation, it is not surprising that many of the folks she regularly interacts with are aural-obsessed as well. Even less surprising, then, that they would ask this question:

Does Jill have one of those famous New York accents?

Dear God, no!

Jill went to an all-girls Catholic high school where she spent four years in competitive speech, performance, and mock trial tournaments, under the tutelage of a nun who could have been a linebacker who tortured the Brooklyn out of Jill.

Actually, we should say the Brooklyn was dialed-down. And stored away. Because a New York accent is like any other language--useful as a second language in a pinch; comes in handy in emergency situations. It is also like any other abandoned mother tongue in that it is often returned to under severe stress or the influence of excessive amounts of alcohol.

Granted, Jill is lazy. Though well-trained by acting and speech instructors to articulate in Standard American English, in comfortable company she says "gonna" instead of "going to" and uses identifiable New York regionalisms that would severely displease Sister Linebacker. Let it be understood, however, that "youse" is never anywhere in the Jill Lexicon.

Also granted, there are some people in Jill's Real Life Circles who seem to think that even the soft usage of lazy regionalisms is reason to be condescended upon, especially when they believe people from their region to be superior to / classier than native outer borough New Yorkers simply by virtue of their birth or street address. (Gosh, did that sound a bit bitter?)

Jill does not agree. The full and proper articulation of every phonetic entity is rather exhausting, and actually--though not to be construed as a license to be inarticulate--Jill finds it hard to trust any person who doesn't now and again take a phonetic shortcut. Especially among friends.

Slang is a beautiful thing. Use it among friends, and--just like big words--when nothing else would say it better.