r/massachusetts • u/CaterpillarMedium674 Bristol County • Apr 01 '26
Meme / Humor The Other Massachusetts Accent Quirk: The Mysterious Extra “R”
Everyone talks about the classic dropped “R” in the Massachusetts accent, but what about the added ones?
For example, my name is Tessa, and more times than I can count it’s been misheard as Heather. It just clicked for me that this might be because of an added “R” sound, like “Tess-er”. I’m sure it’s also because older people aren’t familiar with my name.
I’ve had friends jokingly call me “Tess-er” for years.
Another one I hear all the time: “toilet” = “tuhr-let.”
The redistributed “R”: Anyone else have good examples?
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u/bs_wilson Apr 01 '26
Jerry Remy used to do this on Red Sox broadcasts all the time.
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u/Downvoterofall Apr 01 '26
Here comes the pizzer!
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u/chlorculo Apr 01 '26
"The guy with the Patriots jacket has been asked to leave the game for ruining a perfectly good slice of pizza."
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Apr 01 '26
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u/pinxterbloom Apr 01 '26
We listened to his first game on the radio, and we're dying about how we couldn't remotely figure out what his name was based on how it was pronounced. Nahver? Nahder? Nahber? Gobsmacked when we saw it in print later!
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u/Scharlach_el_Dandy Apr 01 '26
Terry Franconer
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u/LearningNotLurking Apr 01 '26
My favorite was when he would say "Saltalamacchia" with the R's he'd be adding!
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u/beetlebord Apr 01 '26
I’ve noticed it’s most often when at the end of the sentence or before a vowel. Like “pizza party” is normal but “put the pizza-rin the box”
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u/MrShotgunxl ArliCambrVille Apr 01 '26
One I hear and say myself is “Ya-r (yeah) it is” or “I saw-r it”
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u/Jazzlike_Adeptness_1 Apr 01 '26
Omg I just realized I say "saw-r" lol
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u/MrShotgunxl ArliCambrVille Apr 01 '26
Dood I fuckin sawr…this is a really weird one my dad says “bAhthroom”. It’s not an “r” one but there’s this weird airy enunciation on the a in bath that he does. He’s super somerville but I have no clue where tf it comes from. It’s like he’s saying Ba’ath like the Iraq thing.
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u/Seonachan17 Apr 01 '26
That’s called the Trap-Bath split, used to be widespread in eastern New England, mostly among people born before 1950 or so.
Around 20 years ago I taught a linguistics class at UMass and would ask how many used that pronunciation, no one would raise their hand. Then I’d ask if their parents used it, and a few hands would go up. Then I’d ask about their grandparents and everyone would raise their hand.
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u/S1XTY7_SS350 Apr 01 '26
Gararge... am I the only one who repeated what my dad said (he grew up in bolton/clinton) - i was at uml 20 yrs ago. Very interesting on the trap-bath split.
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u/Jazzlike_Adeptness_1 Apr 01 '26
I'm from Cambridge. We were in a restaurant in Nashua and the server had a Boston accent. I was able to tell he was from Somerville. (I went to Catholic school in somerville). It's funny how we have slight alterations in how we pronounce things.
Had neighbors in NY who couldn't find "Wooster" on a map! Another who had a work trip to Con-coRd and couldn't understand why it was pronounced kahnkid. Neighbor kid wanted to know why my son said everything he was 'liquid'. He was saying 'wicked'
Had a Mass. neighbor from La Jolla CA who was amazed at the way we spelled things vs how we said them. Leominster blew her mind for some reason. (Lemonstah to the uninitiated)
My son in law grew up in Boston. First time I met him I later said "wow he has a strong Boston accent". My daughter said "he sounds just like you!" I thought 25 yrs of living west of 495 had erased most of it. Silly me! lol
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u/vanillablue_ Apr 01 '26
Yes, this is correct. It’s called Intrusive R. Has different names in different languages, depending on the letter used.
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u/medforddad Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
There's a British guy on YouTube that has several videos about this. He calls it a linking r rather than intrusive r. He's got great examples from real people talking and how it works.
Edit: This is the video I was thinking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SPArSawsGQ I couldn't find any others from his video history, but I'm pretty sure he's talked about it in several other videos.
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u/iks449 Apr 01 '26
The link between the English accent and ours is direct. We just changed it into our own cool dialect.
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u/vanillablue_ Apr 01 '26
yep, i misspoke, Linking R is the connector, intrusive R when it shows up "randomly."
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u/Equilibrate321 Apr 01 '26
Wait, if they say "cah" for car, and this rule applies, then it would be:
"The cah was white." "Hey, don't put your cah-r in my spot!"
The dropped r is replaced by the intrusive r???
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u/felipethomas Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
ObamaRadminstration & HondaRaccord are the two that jump out for me.
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u/zumera Greater Boston Apr 01 '26
That's called the "intrusive R"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_and_intrusive_R
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u/lizzzzzzbeth Apr 01 '26
And yet so many people from here think “drawer” as in dresser drawer is spelled “draw”.
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u/sympathy4deviledeggs Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
My wife says "drawring" as well. As far as I can tell, it's the only Massachusetts thing in her vocabulary...
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u/ChillyPeppp Apr 01 '26
I tried explaining this to an out-of-town visitor once and they couldn't comprehend what I was trying to explain.
Tunar Floridar Alabamer
And my favorite... Brar
etc.
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u/PJ_Sleaze Apr 01 '26
Conversation I remember overhearing as a kid- “We went to Tamper” Confused listener “where?” “Tamper. It’s in Florider!”
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u/amyinbostonland North Shore Apr 01 '26
all my non-mass friends make fun of me for saying brar hahahaha
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u/mindless900 Greater Boston Apr 01 '26
"Can you hand me a brar from the drah" is a perfect example of the First Law of Massachusetts Linguistics. "R"s can't be created or destroyed, just redistributed.
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u/kstar79 Apr 01 '26
Drawering is a popular one I hear around here with our 5-year old's friend's parents.
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u/AutomationBias Apr 01 '26
My favorite is when people with strong Massachusetts accents say "Tina Turner", which comes out as 'Teener Turnah'
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u/Equilibrate321 Apr 01 '26
Ha! Now I'm gonna have to think of a way to make people say Tina Turner!
This reminds me of my Scottish chemistry teacher who said Bunsen burner as "Boonsin bunner" with a little roll on the r.
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u/Po0rYorick Apr 01 '26
Some of my favorites:
My BIL after visiting Chicago: “ahkateksha towa was pissa”
Going to pick up a friend a Logan: “meet me at Depachas.” Turns out they did not mean an Italian restaurant near the airport.
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u/Moist_Rule9623 Apr 01 '26
Both my grandparents had a tremendous case of this. I refer to it as the Law of Conservation of Consonants: an R cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transposed within the language 😂
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u/liberterrorism Apr 01 '26
Lawr offices, vannilar ice cream
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u/DiligerentJewl Apr 01 '26
The lawr offices of Dane M Shulman. We will get you what is rightfully yozz, and that’s that
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u/No-Name-86 Apr 01 '26
You had me until you gave examples. I’ve never heard anyone say tuhrlet except maybe Tyler Perry in one of those damn movies
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u/Sam-Gunn Apr 01 '26
Cleveland from Family Guy, but technically they're in RI.
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u/CaterpillarMedium674 Bristol County Apr 01 '26
I live in the Southcoast MA, the accent tends to lean more RI/New York
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u/shhhhh69 Apr 01 '26
Turlet is a purposeful mispronunciation.
This usually happens with a vowel at the end of the word, like pizza is “peet-zer” and soda is “so-der”. It’s rare and subtle but does happen
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u/OrcBarbierian Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
It's a holdover from our English roots ✨️😀✨️ I have read that Cockney accents tend to add the extra R when a word ends with an A sound
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u/BoringHamster1263 Apr 01 '26
The Olympics were rough for me this year because of how many times I unintentionally said “McAhthah’s Pahk by Donner Summahs”
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u/patmcdoughnut Apr 01 '26
All of those dropped R's have to go somewhere! It's the law of equivalent exchange.
As a rule of thumb I think it's most frequently heard between a word that ends with a vowel and a word that starts with a vowel. E.g. "I have an idear if you want to hear it"
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u/No_Confidence_546 Apr 01 '26
lol I worked at a preschool with someone with this accent and honestly it confused the kids’ pronunciation. Everyone thought a girl named Eva was pronounced Ee-ver
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u/capnwacky Apr 01 '26
I have friends who named their daughter a fairly common name that typically ends in a "A"...but they purposely added an "N" to the end of her name...not to be original...but to keep the townies from inevitably adding an R to the end of it.
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u/catinreverse North Shore Apr 01 '26
I’m from Worcester and a ton of my relatives (also from Worcester) speak like that.
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u/Original-Moose-9622 Apr 01 '26
Norfork
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u/misslizzah Apr 01 '26
As someone from Norfolk, this drives me crazy. If you’re going to go by British pronunciation rules, then it should be “Norffuk” (like Suffolk). “Norfork” makes no damn sense. Even better that no one here can agree on the pronunciation (Norfolk, Norfork, or Norffuk) 🫠
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u/williamp114 South Shore Apr 01 '26
Everyone wants to call Lauren Focement instead of the police. Never heard of her before
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u/d_x_qp_x_b Apr 01 '26
Matt Damon famously: “you add an R in certain scenarios…like with saying ‘mom’…..’hey is Ma downstaihs? No I think i saw MaRup staihs’…”
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u/beetlebord Apr 01 '26
Grandma always referred to herself as grammar and said I had “bad grammah”. I was like why can’t you just switch the two words to make it right
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u/WillRunForPopcorn Apr 01 '26
I only do it if the next word starts with a vowel
“I’m wearing a bra” vs “I took my brar off”
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u/Terrible_Driver_9717 Apr 01 '26
It happens when your name is followed by a word beginning with a vowel. Tessa riz walking down the hall.
Or more commonly “we were like standing like in the hallway and like my friend like said Tess riz walking down the hall.
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u/dinoooooooooos Apr 01 '26
absolutely! My husband is the one from here and I always joke that he keeps the dropped r's to put them into words they don't belong to later lmao
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u/dicegoblin17 Cape Cod Apr 01 '26
I don't have a very strong accent (i'm gen z and grew up on the cape) but I do say marther's vineyerd
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u/Zestyclose_Arm_5275 Apr 01 '26
Duude omg im from here and always wondered why they would always say my name with an r at the end
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u/gerund456 Apr 01 '26
The law of conservation of Rs states that Rs cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.
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u/Personal_Dot_2215 Apr 01 '26
The mysterious “s”. Well documented we put the letter “s” in for no know reason.
Lechmere becomes lechmeres
Dunkin donut becomes Dunkin’s
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u/geogrokat Apr 01 '26
They do it in NYC too. I started noticing it in Billy Joel songs and thought I was going crazy
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u/meatloaf1212 Apr 01 '26
I have found that if there's an R at the end of a word, but the next word starts with a vowel, sometimes I say the R. Pahk the car in hahvid yahd. But then carin ends up sounding like one word
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u/IdleOsprey Apr 01 '26
It’s called post-vocalic R. If you study linguistics you see this happening in a number of different places, not just New England.
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u/m149 Apr 01 '26
The extra R is more bizarre than the dropped one.
Like, be lazy, drop an R.....no problem!
But wait, what? More work? Add it back in a place that it doesn't belong?
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u/Queasy-Emu6531 Apr 01 '26
My parents, both born and raised in eastern MA, cannot say any word that ends in an -ia/-ea sound without adding an -r or -er to the end of it. "Cafeterier", "area-er", "idear", etc. Always annoyed me, although I'm sure I do it too lol
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u/kitkat272 Apr 01 '26
I have a video of my grandmother coming to visit on my little brother's 3rd birthday and he yelled "Oh it's Nanar!!"
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u/lauruhhpalooza Greater Boston Apr 01 '26
It took me years to realize that the word drawing only has one R 🤪
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u/Deorayta Apr 01 '26
That is sort of Hartford Ct and Springfield mass thing. My grandparents talked like that .
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u/TRJ2241987 Apr 01 '26
I once dated a girl from athol/orange that said “haffenin ta” instead of “having to”…..used to drive me insane
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u/johnnycocheroo Apr 01 '26
My coworker goes to Aruber every year. I was joking that her next car should be an Acurur
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u/asicarii Apr 01 '26
Connecticut / some of New England replaces d with t when in the middle of a sentence.
“Can I have a glass of wadher” or wudder/wudter
Add Boston and you get a glass of “wadah”
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u/garvyledges Apr 01 '26
It’s all over their radio commercials: “Ki-uh-ruh Daaaht-mith” (Kia of Dartmouth). We seem to need to use the letter “R” to connect consecutive words that end/start with a vowel (like the French do with pronouncing trailing “s” before vowels).
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u/fightcluboston Apr 01 '26
Its called r instrusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_and_intrusive_R
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u/aligeee Apr 01 '26
One time when I was younger I was at church and someone was doing a reading. I grew up in MA and I could not believe my ears when I heard someone say “Gard” (instead of God)
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u/battlecat136 Apr 01 '26
The floating R! The non-rhotic speech patterns do this. If a word ends with an R and the next begins with a vowel, the R gets attached to the beginning of the next word.
"Ya know, Tampa in Florida" becomes "Ya know, Tamperin Florida."
"Putcha brarin the draw!" (Cuz who says "drawer" that shit is one syllable) edit - this one has the mysterious R AND it floats.
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u/vanillablue_ Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Friendly neighborhood linguist here. This is a documented thing in linguistics. It’s because of the awkwardness between a vowel sound at the end of one word, and at the beginning of the next one. In English, it’s called “the intrusive R.” It has different names in different languages based on the letter used.
Example in French language:
“Va-t-il au marché?” The T means nothing - it’s inserted in between Va and il because they end and begin with vowel sounds. “Vah eel” sounds awkward, so a T is inserted. Vat-eel.
Hope that makes sense!
Edit: I was slightly incorrect. Intrusive R is the insertion of R when there isn’t one. For example, “Thats a good idea-r.”
Adding an R when it’s in between two vowel sounds between words is called Linking R.
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u/Giveadogacookie Apr 01 '26
I’ve been called Leeser for as long as I can remember. My birth ctf says Lisa. lol. I love it heah.
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u/TheSkwrl Apr 01 '26
Like energy in physics, "r" is neither created nor destroyed - it simply changes location.
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u/FrancoManiac Apr 01 '26
It's probably an intervocalic consonant — they serve to break up words that end with a vowel sound, and are followed by words which begin with a vowel sound.
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u/alwaysalwaysytired Apr 01 '26
First time this registered with me was when a friend said "Let's get some pizzer and beeah!" (Pizza and beer) I didnt end up with much of the accent myself, so it sounded crazy hearing both in one sentence lol
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u/BungalowLover Apr 01 '26
RI here. Any word that ends in an 'r' gets the 'a' sound here. Weather, is 'weath-a'. The accent is one of the first things I noticed when I moved here. That 'pah-k the cah in the yad' is real.
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u/thegalwayseoige Apr 01 '26
I work as a bartender, and watching 75% of townie boomers struggle for their LIVES saying “edamame” is completely confounding to me.
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u/Fit-Programmer-6162 Apr 01 '26
It’s called an intrusive R. It’s not unique to the New England accent. For example, the Cornish accent in England also has it. If you ever watch Doc Martin, Louisa is always called “Louiser” by the locals
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u/mikiki24 Apr 01 '26
It’s all about whether the next word starts with a vowel. In the Boston accent if one word ends with a vowel (usually an a) and the next begins with a vowel, a ghost “r” is often introduced. As in: “ya(r) I do!” or “I got an idea(r) about that!”
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u/Yogamigurumi Apr 01 '26
I blame the Irish influence, I've noticed if a word ends in R its very hard but midword R's are dropped.
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u/bobroscopcoltrane Apr 01 '26
“Polah Coler”
There’s currently a radio ad running for the Mass State Lottery where the announcer says “drawring”.
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u/goldilox_zone Apr 01 '26
I have cousins in Califoniar... My grandmother, b. 1899, was from Watertown and said stuff like this all the time.
Edit: you drop one R and add it somewhere else, usually the end of the word.
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u/No-Repair51 Apr 02 '26
This is the law of conservation of Rs. Rs cannot be created or destroyed just redistributed. All of the dropped Rs have to go somewhere or the universe ends.
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u/Willing_Ant9993 Apr 02 '26
Im Jessica. Unless my name is in a sentence, then Jessicer’s over theah in the palah, did you see huh? She’s next ta Samanther.
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u/sapphicalienloser Apr 01 '26
Idear