cold wittles--(why w-?)

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 04:57 PM 5/13/2005, you wrote:
> >"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
> >
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~
>But why the "vittles/wittles" spelling, anyway?  Why not
>"victuals/wictuals," since the pronunciation is the same?  I suppose it's a
>kind of eye-dialect to convey  the spelling ignorance of the speaker?
>A. Murie
>
>~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>

My students, both American and foreign, are always amazed when I tell them
the "real" spelling of the word, which most of them have never
seen.  "Vittles" is indeed eye-dialect, but it's all they've ever heard or
seen.  I assume it's been pronounced thus going way back, certainly to
Dickens and earlier?

BTW, I have a Ukrainian student who regularly reverses /v/ and /w/.  This
is an "interlanguage" problem for many English learners.  It's not a matter
of "knowing" the rules or "assuming" matchups or inversions with other
languages (German or otherwise); it's usually a problem of interference
from the mother tongue.