I am from Baltimore, and after years of denial I finally have the courage to admit that I have a Baltimore accent. It's not awful, but it's there. It is difficult to describe the Baltimore accent, but if you rent a classic John Waters movie like Pink Flamingos you will get an idea of what it is like.
So, my constant struggle is to say mass in such a way that my accent doesn't take over and make the whole thing a terrible mess. This involves careful enunciation, such as making sure I say the "D's" at the end of "and" in just the right way, and so on. But then you can spend so much time focusing on pronunciation that you mispronounce various words... you sort of overcompensate. Or even worse, some men do "fake" English accents, or sound like James Earl Jones when they say mass. There is a balance to be maintained. The key is to say it just right, which is easier said than done.
Some people out there might think that worrying about how to pronounce words, and where to pause in the canon and other prayers, is a waste of time. But we have such a great treasure in the Anglican liturgy that we must, I think, be very careful with such things. It would be like having a great old classic car that is in great shape, but is just a dirty mess... covered in mud, and full of empty candy wrappers inside. I hate it when our liturgy is rushed through, and words are not pronounced correctly, and everything is sloppy. With the Roman Mass it is one thing, or with Rite II, but with the 1928 BCP it just doesn't make sense. Why butcher the pronunciations, and rush through everything when it is written in this beautiful, poetic language? It would be like going to a Shakespeare play and hearing the actors rush through everything. Moreover, I think rushing and mispronouncing actually makes the mass harder to understand.
I can't axe my Baltimore accent completely, but I can at least work on controlling it so it doesn't rear its ugly head at the wrong time - namely at the altar!
