The Impossible Dream: CAPTAIN R's RHOTIC MISSION

 

Authors' Note: "Captain R" is a muse who appears episodically in the authors' dreams. R. is their abbreviation for rhotic (ROA-tik) dialects in English, i.e. those that honour R-sounds as they are written. The Captain, who clearly has been influenced by the nearby letter "q" as in Don Quixote, and wears a tight-fitting shirt emblazoned with a large "R", has inspired a quest that culminated in the other verses in this collection (at the website OEDILF submitted as articulate, intrusive Rs, and articular.)

Quixotic, BTW, is used to described ideas and actions that are foolishly impractical and romantic.

Authors' Note: The above verse represents a companion piece to the following one, rhotic-poet school  ('articulate' as it originally appeared on OEDILF) ; the author is pleased to declare that both submissions can be read with either a rhotic or non-rhotic accent.

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".