pronunciationrhoticsingle-word-requests
Some find it difficult to form an "r" sound, and some are able to, but just don't. I'm looking for a word which means "not pronouncing r's", without implying inability to pronounce them, though that may be the case.
Specifically, I'd like a word which mean "not pronouncing any r's", but if there's a word which means "not pronouncing some r's" (as in many dialects), that would be interesting to know too.
The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary gives an American English pronunciation for linearly: http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict/?in=linearly&stress=-s
L IH1 N IY0 ER0 L IY0
In International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) this would be /ˈlɪniːɚliː/
In the American Heritage Dictionary-style pronunciation respelling it would be \lĭnēərlē\
In the Wikipedia pronunciation respelling style it would be LIN-ee-er-lee
As has been discussed in other answers, in standard non-rhotic British English, the 'er' of the third syllable is pronounced non-rhotically—that is, indistinguishable from an ordinary schwa. However, there are a number of rhotic British English dialects with a substantial number of speakers which would pronounce the 'er' rhotically.
I finally found the word I was trying to remember: ingraphicacy (the inability to understand maps).
It's quoted in this University of Edinburgh thesis:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/richc/papers/rcox_thesis.pdf
They quote:
In 1965, for example, Balchin & Coleman wrote:
It is hoped that the concepts of graphicacy and ingraphicacy will be taken up and developed by educationists, to mould the vague idea of visual aids at large into a more integrated goal of education, and to carry it down into the earliest stages to take its rightful role as one of the essential underpinnings. (p. 947)
I couldn't find the actual Balchin & Coleman work online, though.
The librarian reference of the original work is:
Balchin, W.G.V. & Coleman, A.M. [1965] Graphicacy should be the fourth ace in the pack. The Times Educational Supplement, November 5th, 947.
NOTE: Strangely, searching for the word in Google returns mostly pages written in Spanish and Portuguese (quoted the word in English) but no use in pages written in English besides the very thesis where it's mentioned.
EDIT: As @Gnomew noted, graphicacy is indeed in the dictionary. I thought it wasn't:
Best Answer
The Wikipedia article on rhotacism gives one definition of that word as “the inability to or difficulty in pronouncing r”.