A Tale of Two “Ardsleys”
Introduction: The Sound of “Yawk”
Picture Madison Square Garden in 1969. The Rolling Stones take the stage, and Mick Jagger greets the crowd with a swagger:
“Aw, New York City, you've talked a lot, let's have a look at you."
With that one line, equal parts taunt and tribute, the Stones kicked off a ferocious cover of Chuck Berry's “Little Queenie.” [1] The moment was captured forever on the Stones’ iconic 1970 live album, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, containing performances from their 1969 U.S. tour. [2]
The Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden, 1969 (Keith Pump)
But the swagger wasn’t only in what he said, but in how he said it. When Jagger says “York,” it comes out as “Yawk.” The 'r' vanishes, making the British rock star sound like a native New Yorker ordering “caw-fee.” So why would an Englishman adopt the city's unique accent on stage?
The answer is rhoticity. That’s the linguistic term for whether or not people pronounce the “r” sound after a vowel. In a rhotic accent, like most American English, you’ll hear that “r” loud and clear in words like car. In non-rhotic varieties of English, like those in London and Boston, the “r” at the end of the word is typically dropped. Car becomes cah, butter becomes “budda,” and water becomes “wadah,” nearly turning the “r” sound into a vowel.
Not surprisingly, The Beatles were largely non-rhotic. This can be heard most prominently in their 1964 song “I Should Have Known Better,” where John Lennon sings the lyric “give me more” as “give me maw,” dropping the “r.” [3] The Beatles occasionally attempted rhotic pronunciations. For example, they start out the song "Another Girl" with a strong "r," but by the end they switch back to the non-rhotic pronunciation, tuning “girl” into “gehl.” This shifting pronunciation hints at an effort to echo the American music they grew up loving, though their native accent keeps slipping back in.
The exaggerated “r” sounds in Frank Sinatra’s anthemic “New York, New York” are a big part of what makes the song so memorable. They give it that punchy, unmistakably American vibe that perfectly matches the city’s bold energy. And it's all in the “r”s.” [4]
This presence of rhotic and non-rhotic accents isn’t confined to pop music. As discussed in a recent podcast, quintessential New York composer Steve Reich used the contrasting articulations of the word “forty,” with and without the “r,” to extract melody from the natural cadences of American speech in his Grammy-winning composition Different Trains. [5]
The Colonial Divergence
Enter Ardsley, which gives us a front-row seat on how rhoticity actually works. In England and non-rhotic Wales, it’s often pronounced Ahds-lee, with the “r” ghosted away. But in the United States, it’s unmistakably Ahrds-lee, with the “r” fully voiced. The difference is not merely an accent quirk; it reflects centuries of sociolinguistic change and cultural divergence on both sides of the Atlantic.
British settlers in the American colonies, starting in Jamestown in 1607, pronounced their “r”s. Rhotic English - again, where the “r” after a vowel is spoken - was the standard across most English dialects before the 1700s, going back as far as the Germanic invasion of England by the Angles and Saxons in the 5th century AD. But in the 18th century, upper-class Londoners started dropping their “r”s and, yard became yahd.
As this non-rhotic accent caught on with the social elite, it began to spread throughout southern England, gaining a reputation as “refined” or “proper” English - the kind you might hear on the BBC or over tea at Downton Abbey. [6] This change didn’t go unnoticed. Lexicographer John Walker called it out in his 1791 Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, noting how words like lard, bard, and regard were now being stretched into laad, baad, and regaad—with that throatier, softened sound taking center stage. [7]
But the origin of the loss of the 'r' and the reason it gained social value remain a linguistic puzzle. [8]
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in what became the thirteen colonies, American English retained its rhotic character because the language was transplanted from Britain during the seventeenth century - before the shift away from rhoticity had begun.
However, over time, new linguistic patterns emerged. For example, parts of eastern New England (like Boston), coastal Virginia, and the Deep South developed non-rhotic accents, possibly due to the lingering influence of British upper-class norms.
New York City’s vernacular (i.e., everyday) speech patterns remained largely non-rhotic, as not only did social elites maintain close cultural and financial ties with non-rhotic Britain during the American Revolutionary War and after, but New York City was occupied by British troops for seven years - from September 15, 1776, until they evacuated on November 25, 1783 - the very same period English speakers in Britain dropped their r’s. [9]
For over a century after 1783, New York City celebrated the British departure as Evacuation Day. On the eve of the centennial commemoration of Evacuation Day (November 24, 1883) the following appeared in The Troy (NY) Daily Times:
The President was Chester Alan Arthur (1829-1886). Born in a log cabin in Fairfield, Vermont, Chester Arthur was one of five presidents who were never elected to the office. Arthur assumed the presidency after Charles Guiteau assassinated then-President James A. Garfield in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. [10]
A bronze statue of Chester A. Arthur stands in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. A staunch abolitionist, in 1854, as a newly minted attorney, he successfully defended the right of Elizabeth Jennings, an African American teacher, to travel by streetcar. Arthur’s court victory paved the way for the desegregation of the city's passenger rails a century before Rosa Parks, who, in 1955, refused to move from her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. [11]
Incidentally, until World War I, when the United States and Britain became allies, Evacuation Day reigned as the nation's most celebrated patriotic holiday, eclipsing even the Fourth of July. [12]
In one of history's most curious ironies, 186 years after the Redcoats evacuated New York City, what the British couldn't accomplish with muskets and cannons, they achieved with guitars and drums - returning not as soldiers, but as The Rolling Stones.
This time, Mick Jagger's r-less drawl conquered New Yawk City in ways King George III never could.
Labov and Social Mobility
No discussion of American rhoticity would be complete without referencing William Labov, widely considered the father of sociolinguistics, the field that studies the social and cultural patterns of language use. In his famous 1960s department store study, Labov (pronounced luh-BOEV) investigated rhoticity in New York City, where speech was becoming a marker of social mobility. [13]
Labov headed into three department stores that catered to different social groups: Saks for the upper class, Macy’s for the middle, and S. Klein for the working class. His mission? To listen to how store employees said phrases like “fourth floor.”
(S. Klein’s Manhattan store at Union Square - “On The Square” meant honest and straight up.) [14]
He found that employees at Macy’s were the most likely to pronounce the “r” clearly. This wasn’t an accident: they were hypercorrecting in response to what they believed was a more prestigious form of speech. Those at Saks already spoke rhotically (or didn’t feel the need to over-articulate), while workers at S. Klein were less likely to pronounce the “r” at all, sticking with the more traditional New York sound.
Labov's findings highlighted that rhoticity had become a socially desirable trait in American English, especially as a marker of professionalism, education, and upward mobility. In contrast to England, where non-rhoticity carried elite connotations, American prestige English moved in the opposite direction. [15]
Labov’s 1963 study on the social stratification of the “r” sound in New York department stores continued to shape linguistic research, with follow-up studies in 1986 and 2012. Both confirmed his original prediction: the vocalized “r” was gaining ground, part of an ongoing “change from above” driven by social ambition. [16]
How National Media Helped America Find Its “R” Again
A leading factor in the further American shift toward rhoticity was the rise of national media in the 20th century. Radio, and later television, promoted a relatively neutral, Midwestern-leaning standard of American English. Broadcasters were trained to avoid regionalisms, and the rhotic “General American” accent came to dominate public life. As Americans across the country tuned in to the same voices, regional non-rhotic accents, like those of New York or Boston, began to decline. In effect, media became a linguistic homogenizer, reinforcing rhoticity as the national norm. [17]
Back to Ardsley: One Name, Two Sounds
Consider again the name Ardsley. [18] In England, the non-rhotic pronunciation - “Ahds-lee” - persists. While calling about a life insurance policy, the author was connected to a receptionist with an English accent who confirmed she was British. When asked how she pronounced our village, the “r” was absent - a small echo of the ongoing linguistic divide that arose centuries earlier.
But here in Ardsley, a suburb just beyond the New York City border, the ‘r’ stands its ground. Despite the region’s history of being influenced by New York City’s non-rhotic speech, suburbanization and exposure to national media have contributed to a more rhotic pronunciation. Ironically, this mirrors how English was spoken centuries ago, making American speech more traditional than modern British English. One might even argue that how we pronounce Ardsley in Ardsley serves as a linguistic time capsule, preserving pronunciation features like rhoticity that faded from British English.
So the next time Ardsley rolls off your tongue, you’re not just naming a place - you’re taking sides in a centuries-old phonetic tug-of-war, where every pronounced 'r' waves its own flag of American independence.
Endnotes:
[1] “Little Queenie” was released in 1959 on the Chicago-based Chess Records label. It was part of The Beatles’ repertoire during their pre-Beatlemania years (1960-1963) while performing in Liverpool, England, and Hamburg, Germany. John Lennon once quipped, “If you had tried to give rock and roll another name, you would call it Chuck Berry.” In 1986, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards inducted Chuck Berry into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
[2] The origin of the Ya Ya’s album title remains obscure. One theory suggests that "get your ya ya's out" was a slang expression meaning to let loose or release pent-up energy, as one might do at a rock concert. Alternatively, the phrase may trace back to North Carolina bluesman Blind Boy Fuller (1904-1941), who recorded his song titled “Get Your Yas Yas Out” in New York City in the 1930s. Blind Boy Fuller performing Get Your Yas Yas Out
[3] I Should Have Known Better A form of rhoticity known as “hyper-rhoticity” occurs when non-rhotic speakers imitate rhotic accents by adding an “r” sound where it doesn't belong. An example is The Beatles’ final track on their acclaimed 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, “A Day in the Life,” where John Lennon sings, "I saw-r a film today, oh boy." A Day In The Life (Remastered 2009) Common examples of this linguistic twist include “an idear of mine” and “lawr and order.” President John F. Kennedy, with his distinctive non-rhotic Boston accent, famously pronounced “Cuba” as “Cuber.”
[4] Theme From New York, New York James Kaplan of Hastings-on-Hudson, author of what is widely regarded as the definitive two-volume biography of Frank Sinatra, observed: “Like the outsider in the song’s ‘little town,’ Sinatra always dreamed of making it in New York. Growing up in Hoboken, N.J., he would gaze across the Hudson River at the city as a teenager.” “When he sang those words,” Kaplan notes, “he meant them deeply.”
[5] Different Trains Podcast In its review of Reich’s minimalist masterpiece, The New York Times called it “a work of such astonishing originality” with a “harrowing emotional impact.” (Pareles, J. (1989, May 28). Recordings for Steve Reich: War and rediscovery. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/28/arts/recordings)
[6] Downton Abbey was a British historical drama television series set on the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey between 1912 and 1926, depicting the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants.
[7] Walker, J. (1791). A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English language .... G.G.J. and J. Robinson. https://archive.org/details/criticalpronounc00walkuoft
[8] Costa, G., & Serra, R. (2022). Rhoticity in English, a journey over time through social class: A narrative review. Frontiers in Sociology, 7, 902213. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.902213 (arguing that changes in English rhoticity are closely linked to social class dynamics, serving as both a marker and a consequence of social differentiation and mobility over time)
[9] Sȩn, A. L. (1979). English in the Big Apple: Historical Backgrounds of New York City Speech. The English Journal, 68(8), 52–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/815156 (“In New York City, approximately seventy per cent of the population was Loyalist”) Sen makes this additional intriguing observation: “Although New York is one of the largest and most economically influential cities of the word, New York pronunciation has very low prestige. This factor actively causes wilful linguistic change.”
[10] In 1976, the year of the nation’s bicentennial, the President was Gerald Ford. Anomalously, Ford had never been elected to either his appointed position as Vice-President - after the October 10, 1973, resignation of then-Vice-President Spiro Agnew (under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution) - or to his elevation to the presidency eight months later (again, under the succession provisions of the 25th Amendment) following Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974. One month later, Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former President Richard Nixon. Eight days later, he signed Executive Order 11803, granting conditional amnesty to draft evaders from the Vietnam War if they agreed to work in public service for up to two years. One day after being inaugurated, on January 21, 1977, President Jimmy Carter, in an effort to promote national unity and to address the “unfinished business” of national reconciliation arising out of the divisive Vietnam War,, signed Proclamation 4483, granting a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to individuals who had violated the Military Selective Service Act by evading the draft during the Vietnam War.
[12] Evacuation Day: New York's Former November Holiday Following the Union’s victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation on October 3, 1863, inviting Americans to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving. Over time, Thanksgiving grew in national importance, while the memory of Evacuation Day faded and is now relegated to a street sign at Bowling Green in lower Manhattan (Evacuation Day Plaza Honored with New Illuminated Street Sign). At the end of the Troy (NY) Daily Times’ article on the centennial of Evacuation Day, the following warning appeared: “The Centennial will attract thousands to this city, and reader, if you are among the number, remember that New York will not be evacuated by pickpockets and bunko-steerers.[bunko-steerers was a 19th century term for members of confidence trickster gangs whose task was to entrap victims into swindles] Hence, ‘be careful’ is the advice of the Hermit of New York." Few things change in the city that never sleeps. In the 19th century it was bunko-steerers; today it's Times Square scammers hustling tourists with polished swindles. Yet the message of Sinatra’s New York, New York is not entirely different. In New York, success is not simply handed out; it is earned through hustle and an unwavering drive to claw your way to the top.
[13] Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Center for Applied Linguistics. Republished in 1972:https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/labov1986.pdf
[14] On the Square (“The store’s merchandise was considered a slight step up from discount retailers but at a class below establishments like Macy’s and Saks.”)
[15] Aa footnote in Labov’s study offers a revealing insight into the nature of prestige:
“A former Macy's employee told me of an incident that occurred shortly before Christmas several years ago. As she was shopping in Lord and Taylor's, she saw the president of the company making the rounds of every aisle and shaking hands with every employee. When she told her fellow employees at Macy's about this scene, the most common remark was, "How else do you get someone to work for that kind of money?" One can say that not only do the employees of higher-status stores borrow prestige from their employer - it is also deliberately loaned to them.”
The broader phenomenon in which individuals may accept lower compensation (salary and/or bonus) in exchange for the intangible benefits associated with working for a prestigious or highly regarded firm or organization has been explained more clearly in a recent Harvard University study, which refers to this as the “prestige tax.” Hao, C. (2025, March 12). The Prestige Tax: Firm Status and Employee Compensation in Finance. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5277330 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5277330
[16] Guy, G. R. (2018). Saks vs. Macys: (r‑1) marches on in New York City department stores (U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 24, No. 2). University of Pennsylvania. https://repository.upenn.edu/bitstreams/daa7fbee-cca0-4473-a72b-7ea7ce4793a2/content
[17] Labov, W., Ash, S., & Boberg, C. (2006). The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, phonology and sound change. Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110167467
[18] For a history of the origins of the word Ardsley, see: Welcome-to-Erdeslauue-est-1086