"Did you warsh your car?"
The intrusive R in “warsh” is most commonly associated with a dialect of American English known as the Midland dialect. The exact boundaries of the Midland dialect region vary from study to study, but all the analyses agree that covers most of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, as well as parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. This is the region proposed in the “Atlas of North American English” by William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. (1) Earlier studies have the region extending into western Pennsylvania, and the earliest ones have it covering all of Pennsylvania, plus some of Maryland and Virginia. Intrusive R can be found in all those areas. A “Washington Post” columnist in 2004 even wrote about hearing the pronunciation “Warshington” on a regular basis where he lived and worked. (2) Even so, it may be dying out. In some places, such as Missouri and western Pennsylvania, it tends to be used more by older speakers, and I’ve seen comments from speakers of Midland American English who don’t say “warsh,” and don’t know anyone who does.
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/why-do-people-say-warsh-instead-of-wash/
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2024-07-15 03:21:22
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npub1yx6pjypd4r7qh2gysjhvjd9l2km6hnm4amdnjyjw3467fy05rf0qfp7kzaPublished at
2024-07-15 03:21:22Event JSON
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"content": "\"Did you warsh your car?\"\n\nThe intrusive R in “warsh” is most commonly associated with a dialect of American English known as the Midland dialect. The exact boundaries of the Midland dialect region vary from study to study, but all the analyses agree that covers most of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, as well as parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. This is the region proposed in the “Atlas of North American English” by William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. (1) Earlier studies have the region extending into western Pennsylvania, and the earliest ones have it covering all of Pennsylvania, plus some of Maryland and Virginia. Intrusive R can be found in all those areas. A “Washington Post” columnist in 2004 even wrote about hearing the pronunciation “Warshington” on a regular basis where he lived and worked. (2) Even so, it may be dying out. In some places, such as Missouri and western Pennsylvania, it tends to be used more by older speakers, and I’ve seen comments from speakers of Midland American English who don’t say “warsh,” and don’t know anyone who does.\n\nhttps://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/why-do-people-say-warsh-instead-of-wash/",
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