[3][4] Features of this variety once spanned an even larger dialect area of New England, for example, including the eastern halves of Vermont and Connecticut for those born as late as the early twentieth century.
[15][14] The sound system of traditional Eastern New England English includes: Some words or phrases most famously or strongly associated with Eastern New England are: Many words common to Boston are also common throughout New England dialects: grinder for "submarine sandwich" (also, spuckie or spuky in East Boston),[38] packie (or package store) for "liquor store",[39][40] rotary for "traffic circle" (these full-speed circular intersections being common in Greater Boston),[27] and yous as the working-class plural form of "you" (a word found throughout the urban Northeast with many spelling variants).
Also, for speakers born before 1950, the words half and pass (and, before World War II, also ask and can't) are pronounced with a "broad a," like in spa: [haf] and [pʰas].
[43] Although mostly non-rhotic, the modern Boston accent typically pronounces the r sound in the NURSE vowel, /ɜr/, as in bird, learn, turkey, world, etc.
[70] The accent's most prominent pronunciation features are th-stopping (pronouncing thin like tin and there like dare) and, variably, word-initial h-dropping (so that hair may sound like air).