Law of conservation of Rs

Years ago, my brother in law coined the phrase the law of conservation of Rs when referring to the Massachusetts accent. Everyone has heard the typical pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd refrain when picking on Bostonians, but few understand that natives are not just throwing those Rs away out of lack of respect for the power of the letter. Neigh, for every R dropped from the end of a syllable, another is placed on the end of a word where most other regions would not notice the R.

You Californians don't have the subtlety to assess the need for an R at the end of the names Rita, Anna, or Emma, but Bostonians, well, they're all about subtlety.

But something always bothered me about the law of conservation of Rs. The added R is not a universal rule in all of Massachusetts. Many regions in the state drop their Rs but don't add them to other words. For years, I was haunted by the worry of what happened to those R or how we could exist with the equation being unbalanced in this way.

But now, I can rest comfortably, for I have found the missing Rs.

Where? You ask? In Ohio!
We soon will be moving to the land of the refugee Rs. Our new address will be in Warshington Township. However, since those in Ohio can take subtlety like those in Boston, it is spelled Washington Township.

This will require some study on my part. You see, I spend lots of time translating spelling words because my sons tend to spell what the teacher says and their teachers are always adding and dropping Rs. Discovered this on a test where firstborn correctly spelled the name Connor. But the word was supposed to be corner. :-) Now, when we go over spelling words I test them both on the correct and the Massachusetts pronunciations.