It has fallen a bit under the radar, but there’s yet another network series set in Rhode Island, and today I’m defending us against it, or at least a comment made by its lead actress.

That would be Julianna Margulies, who used to be on ER before leaving to become a superstar and instead disappearing. A lot of them did that. Whatever happened to Noah Wylie and Sherry Stringfield?

Margulies has now resurfaced as a tough Rhode Island defense attorney in Canterbury’s Law, which airs Fridays on Fox.

The show’s creator, Dave Erickson of Raynham, Mass., decided to set the show here in part because he spent summers working in his father’s sub shops in Warwick, Bristol and East Greenwich. But there was a bigger reason: “There is something about Providence,” he said, “which has a rich heritage — the corruption, Cianci … the Mob.”

Gives you a shiver of pride. If I were the Mob and Buddy Cianci, I’d ask for royalties.

But what I’m writing about today has to do with a question a reporter asked Margulies when the show debuted last month. Why doesn’t her character speak like a true local?

“That’s very funny,” she said. “No, I do not speak with a Rhode Island accent, which was a very conscious decision.”

She gave the following compelling explanation:

“People would have been like, ‘huh?’ ”

Let’s consider that.

I don’t think it was a compliment to suggest that the national reaction to a Rhode Island accent on a television series would be, “huh?”

I remember the show Providence lamely trying it every so often, but it always came out as a Brooklyn accent.

But — correct me if I’m wrong — I don’t recall any prominent show or movie really incorporating Rhode Island-speak.

It’s too bad, because part of what makes Rhode Island unique is that despite its size, it has its own legitimate dialect. Scriptwriters should use it. The fascination facta alone — I mean factor — would boost any show’s audience.

So today, I’d like to offer Canterbury’s Law, or anyone else in Hollywood, a crash course in some useful local words.

There are, of course, the obvious ones — you don’t eat a sub here, you eat a grinda, with source (sauce) on it, a grinda being akin to a tawpeeda sangwidge. You wash it down with a cabinet, and for your main meal, you make a gravy for your pahster. In some places, you can still get a shaw dinna with stuffies, lobsta and chowda. Of course, you’d put vinega on your fries. And fries, if you didn’t know, are made from bah’day’duhs.

We go to the cleansas instead of the cleaners, Chiner instead of China and the cobbla for shoe repeahs.

There is the classic Rhode Island way of asking someone whether he’s dined: “Jeejet?” Or better still, simply: “Jeet?”

You could draw from the real story I was told by someone who moved here years ago, and when he asked where to get help for a remodeling project, was told by everyone to go to Bruce Delumba. Only later did he figure out they meant Brewster Lumber.

I can see a wedding scene thrown into confusion when the bride says, “Till death do us pot.”

Or a dramatic moment when a character with childhood issues says, “My muhtha’s a mahtta,” that being someone who likes to suffa.

I’m sure we can work in a scene up on Smittle where the Genrasemblee is rife with conflict-a-intrist so bad the State Pleece are called in.

There could be comedic moments, such as when a husband comes home with boxes of cotton only to be told by an exasperated wife that she wanted cartons instead. Or when he brings her a pair of khakis and she tells him she wanted car keys. There could be confusion over office workers told to expect a consultant named Ian who turns out to be Ann. Or two men could be reminiscing about football greats, with the non-Rhode Islander pausing to ask, “Who’s Baht Stah?”

Actors would have to be taught the Rhode Island glottal stop to master the brief mid-break in words such as dih’int (didn’t) and bah’ul, as in a bah’ul of Sam Adams.

Somewhere, the writers would have to fit in my favorites, like d’boatayuz. That’s local for “both of you.” And p.s.d.s, which you need to have before putting on most earrings — say the four letters fast.

And there was a great story I once heard from a local who, coming off a plane in Florida, greeted a gate agent with, “Hawaihya?” only to be told, “No ma’am, you’re now in Tampa.”

I wish Julianna Margulies well playing a loy-a in Cantabury’s Lawr.

Though at last glance, the show was not getting good ray’ihns.

She should have never left E-Ah.

mpatinkin@projo.com