Some data on herb, /hw-/

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 10:16 AM 1/29/01 -0600, you wrote:

>Am I the only person left who pronounces h-less "humble"?  With the
>h, I think it's an oil company -- or at least used to be.
>    --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)

I had a former colleague (65-ish) from southern Indiana named Humbles--and
he had a dickens of a time getting people to pronounce his name without an /h/.
(That ref. to "dickens" just reminded me that many of Dickens' characters
were h-less--and I didn't even intend the pun!)

_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm