To wonder why people put "r"s where they don't belong?

[somebloke123]

A trivial matter in the grand scheme of things of course but:

I first noticed this as a school boy "oop north" when a teacher from down south joined the staff and caused great hilarity by saying "drawrings" instead of "drawings".

It seems to be a southern phenomenon but not at all a type of chavspeak. Some of the worst offenders are media types who speak middle class "received" or "BBC" English.

It amounts to an inability to pronounce two successive vowel sounds without putting an "r" between.

A few examples I have heard in the radio, mainly over the past week or so:

West Brom managed a one-all drawragainst Aston Villa.

Planning the withdrawral from Afghanistan.

Chris Grayling is seeking a change in the lawron reasonable force against burglars.

The police are trying to restore Laura Norder.

And on Radio 4's "Poetry Please" in an otherwise moving reading of Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Jail":

"But I never sawraman who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I never sawraman who looked
With such a wistful eye."



Grrrrrrrrr!

[Psammead]

No, no, Wett - I was just correctimg myself really. I don't like it when people say right and wrong when it comes to language, and then I did it myself!

[aimingtobeaperfectionist]

I find a lot of people add 'h' where it's not meant to be and drop it where it is?
As in 'ouse' for house
And 'has' for as

[MaryZed]

Yes, aiming. And troath for throat [baffled]

[monkeysbignuts]

yep Carnt is one of my pet hates lol!!
& farther haha

[monkeysbignuts]

I am from the north west and we seem to drop letters all the time here. My dh is always moaning at me for the way I speak (he wants the kids to speak nice rather than common like their mum haha)

[Psammead]

Adding in an h is an example of hyper-correction. My grandfather who had a strong cockney accent used to do it of he was talking to someone he thought of as his 'better', when he remembered. "Would you like a bite to eat? I could do you some 'am n' heggs" for example.

[MrsRhettButler]

Vagndidit my friend informed me her new car was a 'pur-gee-ot'

[MrsRhettButler]

Going off on a tangent here but that just reminded me of the time my (mad as a box of frogs) cousin was trying to google pictures of a Ford Clio to show me which car she was getting!

[WithoutCaution]

People who both say and write bought as brought drive me mad too. I may get a little stabby over it

So did you buy it or bring it?

[diddl]

Isn´t it "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"?

[Woozley]

I have to say I have never, ever noticed a connective R as per the examples in the OP. I have noticed a lot of people saying barth instead of bath and warter instead of water though. The fools.

[somebloke123]

Yes probably should have used the British spelling.

[tethersend]

Some people don't know their 'r's from their elbow.

[EllenJaneisstillnotmyname]

In Bristol they are called 'drawlings.'

[WishICouldBeLikeDavidWicks]

It bugs me too, such a southern English thing. That and changing some words starting with S to Sh e.g shtudents, mmmmmnnnnaaaargh!

[earthpixie]

I'm eastern English with a fairly MC speaking voice, I guess. If I say draw-ing without an r sound, I sound ludicrously posh.

[MadBusLady]

Yy earthpixie I just tried it and so do I .

It's just an accent, it usually makes certain words easier to say if you have my kind of accent.

I wouldn't put an "r" in the middle of "withdrawal" though, that seems to make it harder to say rather than easier.

[Arithmeticulous]

Rs I do.

Added Ss to shop names - like Tescos, Bootses, Lidls - I find annoying.

[iklboo]

If FIL told me to 'speak properly' I'd be asking him if I was pronouncing 'Fuck Off' OK for him.

I hate extra syllables: ath-er-lete, Eng-er-land etc

[yellowledbetter]

I don't put extra r's in words. This is because I can't say r's properly.

[somebloke123]

I missed perhaps the most famous and immortal example from the Beatles' "Day in the Life":

"I sawra film today, Oh Boy!"

[SecretSparkle]

My MIL always says "You have a barth, you go to Bath" pretty sure neither of them feature an R!!

Oh and for the record, not all brummies are poorly spoken.

Arithmeticulous Do people really do that with most shop names? amazing. Surely it justs sounds odd?

[Deux]

The bought/brought misuse sets my teeth on edge.

But not as bad as people writing and saying draw when it's a drawer. I had the misfortune to check some online reviews of a chest of drawers from Argos and the reviews were littered with the likes of 'the draw was difficult to assemble'.

Our local antique shop had a label on an item of furniture that read 'Chester draws'. Seriously.

[FairPhyllis]

It's a normal part of the phonology of many dialects of English. It's an epenthetic consonant that gets inserted between a low vowel-vowel sequence across a word boundary, by analogy with words that historically did have final /r/ and now have it sounded only when preceding a vowel in a following word. It now also appears within some words which contain a similar sound sequence, like 'drawing'.

Because the intrusive /r/ is sometimes stigmatised, some people overcorrect ("hypercorrect") the other way and leave out /r/ in sequences where it's not actually intrusive, like in 'more and more'.

[somebloke123]

"Epenthetic" Wow - I've learned a new word! Thanks for that.