Kevin Warsh is President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve. For many listeners, his last name brings to mind a regional pronunciation of the common verb “wash” — pronounced “warsh.” Patricia T. O’Conner, an author and language commentator who grew up in Iowa, remembers her grandmother scolding, “show me your hands … I don’t think you warshed those hands.”
That “r” in wash is part of an American dialect that linguists say is fading. You may also hear it in pronunciations like “Warshington D.C.” Names can complicate matters — Paul E. Reed, an associate professor of phonetics and phonology at the University of Alabama, notes Warsh’s name might have been “Wash” or “Walsh” at some point — but the pronunciation pattern itself has a clearer linguistic story.
A leading theory traces the “r” insertion to Scotch-Irish migration to the U.S. South Midland from the late 18th century. These communities, coming from Scotland to Northern Ireland (Ulster) and then to North America, were strongly rhotic — they pronounced “r” sounds robustly. That rhotic influence spread across pockets of Appalachia and beyond: from Baltimore through southern Ohio, up to Michigan and even parts of Washington state. Robin Dodsworth, a linguistics professor at North Carolina State University, says older speakers in these areas still use “warsh,” though it’s less frequent now in the Midlands where it likely began.
Written evidence of the pronunciation appears in 19th-century sources. Philologist Frederick Thomas Elworthy quoted dialectal speech in an 1875 paper, and Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley used “warshed his hands” in an 1897 poem, showing the variant has historical roots in American English.
Phonetically, the “r” insertion makes sense. Nicole Holliday, an acting associate professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley, points out that the American “r” is relatively rare worldwide and that common words like “wash” are especially prone to pronunciation variations because frequent use allows listeners’ perceptions to fill gaps. Linguists describe the mechanism as coarticulation: neighboring sounds influence each other. In “wash,” the “sh” at the end affects the preceding vowel, and the rounding of the lips for sounds like “wah,” “sh,” and “rrr” can facilitate an “r” slipping into the sequence as the tongue moves toward the roof of the mouth. Reed says that once such a pronunciation establishes itself in a community, children adopt it and may even spell the word “warsh” as they learn to write.
Beyond phonetics, the variant carries social meaning. Reed uses the term “rootedness” to describe how pronunciations tie people to place and family. “Warsh” often prompts stories of relatives — a grandmother, an aunt — and serves as an audible marker of home. In southeast Baltimore, where the local accent is famous thanks to filmmaker John Waters, residents described hearing or using “warsh.” Some, like Lisa Molina, a Baltimore native, insist that saying “warsh” follows naturally because her mother said it. Others noted hearing the variant in cities where they lived, like Philadelphia or Seattle.
The “warsh” pronunciation shows up in popular culture too: country singer Luke Bryan sings “Start warshin’ all our worries down the drain,” John McCain famously said “Warshington” in public, and commentators have long noticed the pronunciation in local speech. Fans of regional portrayals, such as Kathy Bates’ Baltimore accent on American Horror Story, have praised authentic-sounding performances.
Still, linguists observe the variant is declining. Dodsworth attributes the drop to greater population mobility; as people move and dialects mix, localized pronunciations erode. She says social media isn’t a key factor in this shift. Holliday frames language as a living organism that changes over time and suggests speakers simply accept its evolution.
In short, “warsh” reflects a mix of historical migration, phonetic tendencies (coarticulation and rhotic influence), and social identity. While still heard in pockets and preserved in memory and culture, the pronunciation is becoming less common as speech communities change.