CURRENT CONTENTS
Quixotic Dream
Non-rhotic vs Rhotic Speech
Rhotic-Poet School
Intrusive Rs
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Readers who find use of the word "rhoticity" pedantic, are advised to substitute "rotisserie".
Authors' Note:
otic: pertaining to the ear, or to hearing, as in the medical specialty oto-laryngology (ENT)
The author is pleased to explain that this verse can be read with either a rhotic or non-rhotic accent. In fact, it is highly recommended that each reader try to recite it aloud both ways.
Poor, sure, more is a trio of words often used for rhyming in poetic or song-lyric lines (a random example: I'd like to ensure / That our love will bring more). Non-rhotic speakers apparently find that these words rhyme as indicated in the phonetic renderings paw, shaw, maw. To rhotic ears, however, the partial rhyming of 'sure' and 'more' sounds as amateurish as pairing 'time' and 'fine'.
With occasional exceptions, native-born and -schooled Canadians using English are rhotic speakers, their Rs being fully sounded, even after vowels. However, we have welcomed to our shores large numbers of immigrants from around the globe who have brought their non-rhotic dialects. Their speech pattern is rendered roughly by changing all the relevant Rs to Hs, e.g. 'hard' == > 'hahd'; 'exhort == > 'exhoht'
Apparently, expert linguists have established that English was spoken only rhotically until the time of Shakespeare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the use of non-rhotic speech, with the loss of 'post-vocalic R', spread until it became the dominant speech pattern in most of England, the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, Australia and several other English colonies.
Authors' Note:
celler (CHEH-ler): a large stringed instrument, imaginatively pronounced with an intrusive R; often accompanied by the pianeR, and, in the orchestreR, by the violeR, oboeR, tubeR, and piccoleR
Readers may have to stretch their credulity to accept that a ring of thieves would bring large musical instruments like cellos, stolen elsewhere, to be dumped on the UK market.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was satirized in the press as "Laura Norder" as she often reiterated the mantra "Law and Order", voiced with an intrusive R, as law-R an' order. This element of speech, frequently used by non-rhotic speakers of British and of southern hemisphere English, is likely the most common form of epenthesis, the adding of unrelated letters to ease pronunciation. Americans are not immune to this linguistic peculiarity, as witnessed by the 1950s books and movie about the Texan boy-and-his-dog "Old Yeller".Canadians look on, puzzled.
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Readers may have to stretch their credulity to accept that a ring of thieves would bring large musical instruments like cellos, stolen elsewhere, to be dumped on the UK market.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was satirized in the press as "Laura Norder" as she often reiterated the mantra "Law and Order", voiced with an intrusive R, as law-R an' order. This element of speech, frequently used by non-rhotic speakers of British and of southern hemisphere English, is likely the most common form of epenthesis, the adding of unrelated letters to ease pronunciation. Americans are not immune to this linguistic peculiarity, as witnessed by the 1950s books and movie about the Texan boy-and-his-dog "Old Yeller".
Authors' Note:
celler (CHEH-ler): a large stringed instrument, imaginatively pronounced with an intrusive R; often accompanied by the pianeR, and, in the orchestreR, by the violeR, oboeR, tubeR, and piccoleR
Readers may have to stretch their credulity to accept that a ring of thieves would bring large musical instruments like cellos, stolen elsewhere, to be dumped on the UK market.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was satirized in the press as "Laura Norder" as she often reiterated the mantra "Law and Order", voiced with an intrusive R, as law-R an' order. This element of speech, frequently used by non-rhotic speakers of British and of southern hemisphere English, is likely the most common form of epenthesis, the adding of unrelated letters to ease pronunciation. Americans are not immune to this linguistic peculiarity, as witnessed by the 1950s books and movie about the Texan boy-and-his-dog "Old Yeller".Canadians look on, puzzled.
Readers may have to stretch their credulity to accept that a ring of thieves would bring large musical instruments like cellos, stolen elsewhere, to be dumped on the UK market.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was satirized in the press as "Laura Norder" as she often reiterated the mantra "Law and Order", voiced with an intrusive R, as law-R an' order. This element of speech, frequently used by non-rhotic speakers of British and of southern hemisphere English, is likely the most common form of epenthesis, the adding of unrelated letters to ease pronunciation. Americans are not immune to this linguistic peculiarity, as witnessed by the 1950s books and movie about the Texan boy-and-his-dog "Old Yeller".
