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I live in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, home of Swarthmore College, a really good liberal arts college.
People who live here sometimes pronounce Swarthmore with the hard middle “r” and sometimes they don’t (as in, a “Swahthmore”). When the middle “r” is omitted, the name sort of feels like a town in New England to me.
Our local newspaper once ran a survey asking folks how they pronounce it. The majority of folks choose to pronounce the hard “r.” Some say when pronouncing it in context with the college, you pronounce the middle “r,” and when in context as a resident, you don’t.
Well, here’s a thing. Today I took a Lyft back from a service station to fix a tire on our car, and the voice on the navigation system pronounced it “Swahthmore” without the hard “r”.
I’ll go with that. And this:
