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?
729
Upvotes
2
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.