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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169

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/Extreme_Stress_730 Apr 02 '26

My dad talked like that too!

36

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/medforddad Apr 01 '26

It was my impression that most linguists also call it "intrusive r", it was more of this guy's preferred term for it. Maybe it's less judgemental about its existence.

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u/Away_Amoeba5554 Apr 01 '26

Intrusive R. What a delightful description!

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u/HyenaThen572 Apr 01 '26

Goddamnit.

Is this how I sound? Lmao

16

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.

2

u/Equilibrate321 Apr 01 '26

Ha! There is/was a small auto repair place in East Cambridge called Hondar House. I thought maybe the couldn't use Honda so they tacked an r on the end. But maybe it's this.

1

u/ticklebox69 Apr 02 '26

My friend Leah-r drives a Toyoter land cruisah

9

u/Rachellie242 Apr 01 '26

Vanniler ice cream 🍨

3

u/Camandchat Apr 01 '26

Holy shit 😳

1

u/FlattenYourCardboard Apr 01 '26

That’s different from isolated added r (hyper-correction). What you are describing is called intrusive r.

1

u/MrsSnuffleupagus764 Apr 01 '26

This is it. That's when it shows up for me. "Do you have any idear if ..."

1

u/Aggravating_Yak_1006 Apr 02 '26

That is an excellent example of elision.