cold wittles--(why w-?)

[Mullins, Bill]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Cohen, Gerald Leonard
> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 3:37 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: cold wittles--(why w-?)
>
>
> "Wittles" (with "w') looks like a hypercorrection, as if
> "vittles" isn't the standard pronunciation. I don't have my
> books on Cockney speech handy, but I remember reading that
> Cockneys (often? always?) pronounce /v/ like /w/.  E.g.,
> "when" can be pronounced "ven."
>      Many English, including Cockneys, came to the U.S.
> Maybe some of them, trying to improve their speech,
> hypercorrected "vittles" to "wittles."
> I remember an educated Slovenian, who immigrated to the U.S.
> and  would sometimes speak of the "hills and walleys" of this
> or that country. He was perfectly capable of saying "valleys"
> but must have assumed that if words like German "wenn,"
> "was," "wo" (pronounced with /v/ are are "when," what," and
> "where" in English, then "valley" must be a foreign (and
> hence incorrect) pronunciation of what is properly "walley."
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
>
Ensign Chekov on the original Star Trek series would do this as well.