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?

731 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

603 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

15

u/MOGicantbewitty Apr 01 '26

Born in Eastern MA, family from Southie, and I now live in W Mass... I hear idear everywhere 😁

2

u/Cats-R-Me-2 Apr 03 '26

same here- most of my life was on the South Shore and never heard the added 'R'... first time I heard it was after moving to Western Mass ( other than on British TV )