The Insidious "R"

There is an invasive species, a pernicious weed, infecting the (British) English language. It crosses all class boundaries, infecting the speaker regardless of dialect -- though it does favor some dialects more than others. I refer to this phenomenon as The Insidious "R". It is so named because an "r" sound has crept into the pronounciation of words and phrases where it shouldn't be. It has infiltrated so completely that most people have no idea it is there and look at me with great confusion if I point it out.

As an "armchair linguist", I have been observing this condition since we moved to England. I have studied the weed's habits and I now feel I can pin it down a bit better. Well enough to put it into words, at least.

The Insidious "R" most commonly appears in words or phrases in which a short "a" sound (as in pasta) is followed by another vowel sound. I suppose it came about for the purpose of smoothing the transition between the two vowel sounds. American English seems to be relatively free from this -- with the exception of certain dialects/accents in the Northeast -- so it is possible to pronounce the aforementioned sound combination without the "r".

To illustrate the phenomenon, I will give a few examples that I have been "collecting". I will first give the word or phrase with the proper spelling and then spell the "infected" version phonetically:

1) Pasta and sauce -> pah-sturh-and sauce

2) Hurricane Wilma is... -> hurrican Will-murriz

3) Cheetahs in Africa... -> cheeters in Africa
(an interesting one given that the two vowel sounds were technically already broken up by the "s" in Cheetahs)

4) Willy Wonka and... -> Willy Wong-kurrh-and
(cracked up laughing when I first heard this one)

5) Yeah, I... -> yair-eye

6) Clawing -> clor-ring
(the first time I heard it within a word as opposed to between two words)

7) Beta SP -> beeturh ess pee
(proves that it the phenomenon stems from the pronounciation only and have nothing to do with spelling or some unwritten rule of grammar)

8) Agenda or... -> a-jendurh-or

9) From now on... -> frumm now-ron

10) I don't want to hear it -> ...too-rear-it
(only in dialects in which the leading "h" is dropped in pronounciation)

11) Any word ending in a short "a" sound in which the speaker is either fading out (digressing) or following with "uh" or "uhm"

There are countless other examples, but I have listed the most common types of infection.I hope that makes it a bit clearer. Next time you hear a Brit speaking, try to pay attention to this and see if you notice it, too. And if you yourself are British, please try out a few phrases like the ones above and see if you find any truth to it.

Then again, who am I to talk? I pronounce "t" like a "d" (wa der, bu dder, etc.), just like most Americans.