The Intrusive “R”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hello, who is this?

This is Brittany. I’m from San Diego.

Hiya, Brittany.

Hi, Brittany.

Hi, how are you guys doing?

Great.

Okay, well, my question is actually a little strange.

My dad’s side of the family comes from Arizona, and they’re from Phoenix, and they’re from Tucson.

And instead of saying wash, it’s spelled W-A-S-H.

They say the word wash, and they use it in all different contexts, the washing machine, wash your hands, and I was just really curious as to where that came from and why.

-huh, in Arizona.

Are they originally from Tucson?

You know, I think they are, and I know some of them are from Phoenix as well, but yeah, they originally hail from Arizona.

So, pronouncing W-A-S-H like warsh, huh?

-huh, it kind of sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles, huh?

Sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles?

Yeah.

Warsh?

Yeah, warsh.

Is that the only word that they say that way?

You know, it is.

And I actually, I’ve been listening to them recently to see if they pronounce anything else that way, but it’s only warsh.

Maybe you should serve them butternut squash and see if they say squarsh.

Because some people who say warsh do say squarsh.

I’ve never heard squarsh before.

I’ve only heard warsh.

Yeah, well, that’s just one of the weird things about this warsh pronunciation.

It’s perfectly natural to a lot of speakers in what we call the Midland dialect, which is a broadly defined area, Pennsylvania west across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, down into the Appalachians, and then spreading westward.

So I wonder if it made it all the way to Arizona with your family.

Yeah, I was just really curious because I thought it was normal my whole life, and then I was corrected by a friend’s parents that are on ten or so.

So you grew up saying warsh as well.

Yeah, I definitely said warsh quite a few times.

Well, Brittany, if it makes you feel any better, it does have a name.

It’s called either the intrusive R or the epithetic.

I can’t even say it.

That’s all right.

I do that all the time.

Some of these words are only meant to be read, not to be spoken.

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s an example of epithesis, which is the insertion of a consonant there.

And it’s really weird, and linguists have kind of puzzled over this, and the best explanation I’ve heard is just basically that your tongue sort of anticipates that SH sound, and then it kind of curls a little bit.

But some of that is happening, though.

The pronunciation is transmitted the same that other dialect features are transmitted.

So it’s not that each person is coming up with this pronunciation on their own.

They’re learning it from their family, as you noticed.

Yeah, exactly.

In this area, there’s a lot of Scots-Irish influence, and some people think that maybe that has something to do with the intrusive R in wash.

Oh, okay.

Warsh.

We always say be proud of your dialect.

Have you changed the way that you say W-A-S-H?

You know, I have because I was really embarrassed when I got corrected, and they actually spelled it out for me and said, look, there’s no R in there.

Had you thought about that before?

You know, I had, yeah.

-huh.

But English is so fraught with words that don’t sound like they look.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone to come across another one, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, well.

Thank you so much, Brittany.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Warsh.

I don’t have that.

I have a few family members who say that, but it’s not one that I picked up from my family.

Yeah, I didn’t either, although there were some people in Louisville who said warsh.

It was really weird.

It’s funny that some of the warsh sayers, the warsh speakers, don’t hear it in their own voices.

Yeah, well, Brittany didn’t.

Yeah, they don’t know that it sounds that way to other people.

A lot of accents and a lot of dialect features are like that.

We don’t know that they’re strange until someone else points them out.

Call us about the thing that your family says that’s so embarrassing.

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