Hypercorrection of /w/-/hw/

[Bethany K. Dumas]

On Tue, 25 May 2004, Peter A. McGraw wrote:

>> Speaking with my horsey clothes on now, I do not use /hw-/ when saying
>> "Whoa! - no matter how fast the horse is going!
>>
>> Bethany
>
>But do you say "wo" or "ho"?
>
>I understood from the previous discussion that there was a consensus that
>the discourse marker is [wo], never [hwo], and this has also been my
>observation.  My original message was meant to address the horse command
>exclusively, which in my experience is always [ho], not [hwo] (or [wo]).
>This being the case, I was wondering aloud where the form [hwo] came from
>or whether it still actually exists.

Interesting. When I want the horse to stop or slow down, I say /wo/. I
also say /ho/ occasionally - but not as a pronunciation of <whoa> meaning
slow down.

Bethany