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Could you ever actually ‘pahk yah cah in Hahvahd Yahd’?

As it turns out, this classic phrase has been annoying Massholes since the dawn of Dunkin’.

By Abby Patkin

January 2, 2024

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The routine goes more or less like this: You tell someone you’re from Boston (or thereabouts) and watch the knowing smile spread across their face. Whatever they’re about to say, you know it will come coated in a Damon-Wahlberg-Affleck accent as thick as the Great Molasses Flood.

“Pahk yah cah in Hahvahd Yahd.”

Except any good Bostonian knows you can’t actually park in Harvard Yard, right? Well, sort of. 

True, there are no designated parking spots in the Yard, a Harvard spokesperson confirmed. There are, however, a handful of times when someone might be allowed to drive their car into Harvard Yard and park it. 

First-year students moving into and out of dorms on the Yard are granted that privilege, though for a limited time only — Harvard gives families just 20 minutes to offload. 

The Harvard spokesperson acknowledged that there’s a “very limited” list of others who might get a pass to park in Harvard Yard. The lucky few include drivers making a delivery to the Yard; vendors working in a building there; dignitaries (by special request); tutors making a drop-off or pick-up; and those who have a mobility issue or who make a request through Harvard Memorial Church, located in the Yard.  

Given Harvard Yard gets heavy foot traffic year-round, the school limits vehicle access “to ensure the safety of students, faculty, staff, and visitors,” the spokesperson explained. 

In a tradition that supposedly dates back centuries, you are allowed to park your cow in Harvard Yard if you hold the Hollis Chair, the oldest endowed professorship in North America. But was there ever a time when parking a car in Harvard Yard was regular and widespread?

“Not that we are aware of,” the Harvard spokesperson said. 

Not for lack of trying; former Cambridge Mayor Alfred Vellucci was “notorious for his zealous feuds with Harvard,” according to The Harvard Crimson. He famously threatened to take Harvard Yard by eminent domain and pave it for public parking. 

The origins of ‘pahk yah cah’

If Harvard Yard remains mostly vehicle-free, where did the notorious “park your car” expression come from? 

Eric Randall, writing for The Boston Globe in 2015, found that the phrase probably started out as a variation of a litmus test used to highlight how different regions pronounced their “ah” vowels and their “r”s. 

Randall cited one Globe article from 1953, which read, “Eastern New Englanders might ‘pack the ca behind the ban’ but no one else in the country does. New Yorkers ‘pahk the cah behind the bahn,’ while in Baltimore, of all things, you ‘pork the cor behind the born.’” 

As it turns out, the “Harvard Yard” version of the phrase has been annoying Massholes since the dawn of Dunkin’. 

According to the 2015 Globe article, linguist and journalist Ben Zimmer traced the phrase back as early as 1946, when it had already been dubbed the “Famous Harvard Accent Test.” Notably, documented uses of the phrase swap out “the” for “your” and “on” for “in” interchangeably.

The Globe reported in 1962 that a troop of Girl Scouts from Greater Boston were met with an unusual request during a meetup in Vermont: “Let’s hear you say, ‘Park the car in Harvard Yard.’” 

“The southern scouts think we talk so quaint and cute,” one scout from Belmont told the newspaper.

According to Randall, “park your car in Harvard Yard” started out as a way to test for the Harvard dialect, a non-rhotic blend of New England preppy, Greater Boston Irish-American, and Midwestern accents that produced “a sort of ritzy, trans-Atlantic speech that made the speaker sound vaguely British.”

Eventually, the “Harvard Accent Test” came to encompass the charm and peculiarity of the Boston accent. These days, however, out-of-towners are cautioned against asking Bostonians if they “pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd.” 

“Keep any imitations to the confines of your hotel room,” one Hotels.com listicle warns.