Talking like a ‘Maineah’: Surveys, research show state’s
celebrated accent holds distinct place in English  Posted Jan.
12, 2014, at 9:39 a.m. Last modified Jan. 12, 2014, at 12:03
p.m.  About anywhere in New England, they’re sneakers, not
tennis shoes, and it’s a rotary, not a traffic circle.  Travel
west of the Connecticut River, and Italian sandwiches turn into
foot-long grinders.  Head north, and you’ll smack headlong into
a word that appears to be singularly Maine: “Ayuh.”  For Bert
Vaux, it’s not a regional curiosity. It’s a career.  The
University of Cambridge professor has studied language for years
and been part of two major linguistic surveys, parsing meanings,
pronunciations and myriad regional vocal quirks.  And do those
quirks get quirky.  In New England, rain falling while it’s
sunny out is a sunshower. Down South and in parts of the United
Kingdom, France, Syria and Japan, the phenomenon is more
popularly known as the devil beating his wife.  Sometimes that
beating takes place behind the kitche