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Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. I disagree that New Englanders moved into New York City and changed the accent to non-rhotic. Lots of people moved into New York City...Jews, Italians, and Irish being the biggest. I think New Englanders might be around # 178 on the list of groups moving to NYC, and the New Engand -ar is so different from the NYC -ar that we can forget the whole theory. Also the Northern Cities accent shift is food for a nice academic paper (that's what scholars do, right?) but incorrectly implies that northern cities like Syracuse or Albany did something or other to change the accent from the rural acreas, when the truth is that the rural accent around Syracuse is the same as that in the city. People move back and forth all the time. You have to have a big city like NYC or Boston to have enough isolation to create a new accent. There is no variation in accent anywhere from eastern NY to Syracuse, city, rural, or whatever, because people move around too much and there is no isolation. The first change going west happens in Rochester, where o changes to a. So, ""doctor"" becomes ""dactor,"" ""contact"" lenses becomes ""cantact"" lenses. I'm an optometrist, a dactor who fits cantacts whenever I'm in Rachester. Ha ha. I tell patients to turn their hat around and they turn their head around. e becomes a, so ""head"" sounds like ""hat."" I ask them, how do you say ""head"" and they say ""heead."" Buffalo gets worse, it has a Midwest accent, by everybody's opinion, and many Buffalo people think it's part of the Midwest. I think you are from Ohio, that's probably just like Buffalo. Believe it! "