Growing up I heard it in the Mission, but wasn't sure if it was natives or people who moved here from NYC. It sounded like a kind of Brooklynese to me, as I remember.

I can often identify Bay Area natives, but I'm not sure how.

My uncle Bob had that Brooklyn like accent, he almost ever left the Mission except for a once a month trip out to the Richmond to drink with boyhood friends at Pat O'Sheas (not the mad hatter one). Unfortunately he's dead now.

Go talk to Carl Nolte, the San Francisco Chronicle writer. He's a native of the Mission and I think close to 70 years old, or even older. His speech is distinctive. His background is Irish, I believe. And he probaby could put you in touch with a bunch of much older San Fr'ciscans -- if you're speaking mostly of white San Fr'ciscans anyway. His knowledge of San Francisco history is impressive.

This Craigslist link offers some insight on SF-speak and history from a native: www.craigslist.org/about/be...7655.html

Anyway, that supposed Brooklyn accent in the Mission? That's a product of the Irish working class who settled in the Mission at the turn of the last century. So it's not Brooklynese at all. Wikipedia says the following pronunciations in parentheses typify the Brooklyn accent, which is being supplanted by the Jersey accent; a person could say that's also the way the Irish pronounce the words as well: Coffee (cawffee) • Daughter (dawta) • Door (dawr) • Dog (dawg) • Frog (frawg) • Talk (tawk) • Here (hea) • Water (wata) • I (oy) • Them (dem) • Idea (idear) • Sugar (suga) • Darling (dawling) • Dear (dea) • God (gawd) [Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_accent ]

One thing I know is true about San Fr'ciscans -- we alway ask when we meet somewhere other than SF: (1) Where'd you grow up? and (2) What high school did you go to? For instance, last year while apt. hunting, I talked with a gal who was renting out an upstairs unit. After finding out we were both native San Fr'ciscans, I asked the question, So where'd you go to school? Her reply, Yeah. You're a San Fr'ciscan; you can learn almost everything about somebody by the school they went to. (She went to Sacred Heart.)

Doesn't like the entire Alioto family have this accent?

I was just speaking to a couple of old timers born and raised in the City and they have that accent, almost NY.
She's from Potrero hill, I didn't catch where he grew up, but they've been in the same house on the hill for 49 years.

the accent and the idiomatic expressions to san franciscans born "south of the slots" - mission street and east to the bay- are similar to some NYC accents but being SF born south of the slots I don't know where in NYC. Our parents were immigrants or grandparents were. My family all grew up on Potrero Hill which was south of the slots.... expressions like turn off the light (instead of turn out or put out) is a local one, I cant think of any others offhand but if you want to interview for SF accents, most of those you'll interview have moved away for $urvival reasons upon retirement age. My first house on 29th St near Diamond cost $15.500 in the late 60's.... my last house in DogPatch made it into some architecture books as a sample of old SF tract houses..... Try approaching a place like Potrero Hill Neighborhood House or Church of the Nativity in the Tenderloin (a Slovenian/Croatian/Polish Catholic church with mostly recent arrivals or old SF residents/ex-residents.

Wow! I've been working on documenting this accent for a long time. As a native SF'er, my grandfather, great aunts, as well as father-in-law and his family all had south-of-the-slot accents. These folks had parents who originally came to Ellis Island as well as around the Cape to San Francisco, and were from different nationalities and faiths (Jewish from West & Eastern Europe, Irish Catholic, Norwegians, etc.) but they all settled in the Mission area. All those folks have passed on, but I found one elderly woman who still speaks with an SF accent, and I have audio recorded her voice. I have a website, www.mysfstories.com, in which I have stories of old SF and will add one using that accent soon! Please visit it, and let me know what you think.

Absolutely there is a S.F. accent! The Mission was predominantly Irish in the 1920-40s, with Germans and French (Basques, etc.) thrown in. My aunts are in their 80s and were raised in Corte Madera, and they have it. I had a boyfriend in college whose father was 3rd gen, of Basque ancestry. Well educated and in an upper-managment, white-collar career. He said "dem" instead of "them," "doze" instead of "those" and "youse guys." I questioned him once about having what sounded to me like a Bronx accent and he exclaimed "ah, dat's SOUT' UV DUH SLOT!' "The Slot," of course, was Market St. ("the slot" refers to the streetcar tracks) and "south of the slot" was the Mission, etc. I always thought it was a NY accent...but I lived in Dublin from '93-'95 and it's actually very much like a No. Dublin accent (So. Dublin is "posh" and the accent is "west Brit" -- much more English.) So -- my theory is that a "San Francisco accent" is actually a modified Irish accent (which is why it sound like Brooklyn and the Bronx) -- but I'm strongly suspect a student of such things would find there's quite a bit of German mixed in, too (the Irish and Germans were mostly Catholics and associated together and intermarried...)