In Defense Of The Harvard Accent

To the editors:



Re: “Culture Clash,” op-ed, Feb. 20.

Although I was very much here in 1972, I did not mock his mother’s regional accent, nor am I aware of ever hearing of it, and so I suggest that Stephen J. Bartenstein leave my accent alone. I have been using it before he and his mother were here. There is indeed a “Harvard accent,” and I freely admit to being a mature representative of it. I direct my critic to the remark of the once-popular cultural critic, George Ade, who declared that his alma mater, Purdue, “gives you everything that Harvard does, except the pronunciation of a as in father.” Perhaps Mr. Bartenstein would be happier at Purdue, or perhaps at Suffolk University where he could wallow in Blue Collar Bostonese as much as he liked. Because I sound neither like Al Sharpton nor Ted Kennedy '54-'56, I clearly confuse Mr. Bartenstein, and that is a pity for he might discover that despite my accent I might have something worthwhile to say. My late colleague Porter Professor Emeritus Sydney J. Freedberg, among our most distinguished of art historians and a native Bostonian, was asked where he got his plumy accent. He replied, “pure affectation.” I admired his dismissal of an impertinent inquiry, but I acquired my tongue the old fashioned way: I was born with it. Transfers to Purdue, Mr. Bartenstein, I hear are not too hard to come by.


PETER J. GOMES
February 27, 2007
Cambridge, Mass.

The writer is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.