Not for an East-Coaster. For them, admitting it is also called "bragging."
Like "look at me, I'm so parochial"?
Not exactly. Many NYers (and those in the Tri-State area in general) really do think their little corner of the world
is the center of it. And in many cases, it is not because of a lack of exposure to the rest of the world (although there are certainly plenty of that variety as well). NY really does have some of the best museums, restaurants, theatres, and other cultural meccas in the world. And don't get me started on the shopping!
IMO, it's a great place to visit. But I wouldn't want to LIVE there (and I tried it for a year).
[/li][li]He's got a stereotypical Jewish accent (For all I know it could be legit, but I've never heard a human, instead of a character, speak like that.)
[/li]- His sentence structure is reminiscent, in a way I lack the vocabulary to describe, of both Jewish characters I've seen and Tante's example earlier in this thread (You want I should go?)
His accent is exaggerated but not terribly so. The grammatical structures you noticed are Yiddish in origin (mostly, anyway). A few have actually crept into mainstream English. Just last week I noticed a blogger, who as far as I know has no connection to anything Jewish, use the phrase "I hold by [such-and-such authority]," which I do not believe is generally a common American English usage. But it's used in Yinglish all the time.
They even throw in some Yiddish vocabulary like "shlep."
You know
that word, like "
megillah" and "
chutzpah" have become fairly mainstream, right? Even outside of NY?