Originally Posted By: Faldage
 Originally Posted By: The Pook

Do you mean non-rhotic spelling? Surely people have been speaking dialects with or without the 'r' sounds in certain words for longer than that?


Certainly, in some circumstances the R has dropped out of pronunciations, but it doesn't really count as non-rhoticism. The missing R in speak is an example. I think it's a matter of an R after a bilabial or labio-dental that disappears. Modern examples are liberry, Febyuary, and infastructure. That doesn't really count as non-rhoticism. And, yes, probably there are dialects all over the world where post-vocalic Rs have disappeared. But this is Modern Standard English we're talking about and it's all getting too complicated to keep up at the moment. I've got my day job to go to and it's getting late.

Have a nice day! Mine's over and I'm about to try to get to bed early for a change.

The above is just a sideline anyway (what isn't here!) - the main point I'm making is that the original word DIDN'T have a spoken 'r' in the second syllable when it came into the language, so it is extremely unlikely for the 'r' sound to have been added, since, as you point out here, they tend to elide rather than appear (sorry, elide is not the right word, that applies to vowels, doesn't it, but the word for consonants slipping out eludes my old brain right now). So it must be a non-rhotic spelling variant.