IT isn't as recognizable as the soft drawl of the Deep South, the twang of Texas or the sing-song cadences of Minnesota, but, yes, there is a Connecticut accent.

Or, more precisely, there are several accents.

Connecticut, as it is so often reminded, is between New York City and Boston, geography that does more than create confusion for which baseball team to cheer. Over the centuries, both cities have influenced the way Connecticut residents talk, although no one in the state pahks the cahr in Hahvahd Yahd or goes to Noo Yawk. The Connecticut accent is subtler and further influenced by regional differences.

New Britain residents have a distinct way of speaking that can be traced to the Polish immigrants who settled there beginning mostly in the late 19th century. In Bridgeport and Middletown, the Italians had an influence. And in Fairfield County, there's a little New York in there, but no one sounds like Thurston Howell III, the oh-so-rich character from the 1960's TV show "Gilligan's Island," or William F. Buckley Jr., who was raised in Sharon.

"In my household growing up we watched William F. Buckley Jr. on 'Firing Line,' and to me, that was the Connecticut accent," said Kirk Varner, the news director at Channel 8 in New Haven, who grew up in South Carolina. "The sense was that people in Connecticut spoke in a much more precise kind of way, almost like they were trying to sound erudite, even if they were not."