wheel barrel

[Wilson Gray]

Exactly so.

Sometimes, a name can be popular in one area and unknown in another.
The original "Wilson" was my father, a native of Alabama, where
"Wilson" is a common name, who moved to Texas after he met my mother.
A couple of other Alabama Wilsons are Wilson Baker of Selma fame and
Wilson Pickett, the soul singer. The only other first-name Wilson that
I've ever met, other than my father, was a guy named Wilson Cohen that
I once met at a party in Sacramento.

Names ending in "-son" are quite popular in Brazil (remember Edison
Arantes?) Once, I was watching the credits roll at the end of a
Brazilian movie, when I saw, "Wilson Grei ... Flunky." Oh, well.

-Wilson

On 2/26/08, Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>
> Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
>  Subject:      Re: wheel barrel
>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> I think Wilson's point is that this hypercorrection in unfamiliar
>  words, or, perhaps, better, ones which the speakers would not know
>  how to classify into the /hw/ versus /w/ set (assuming they were not
>  native speakers of the distinction). Such hypercorrection is very
>  reasonable for the period Wilson describes; I member kids from the
>  40s ourside my home area (where we were all /hw/ers) telling me that
>  their teachers tried to provide them with the distinction, and when I
>  was in the third grade I member us little lowland hillbillies'
>  amazement at seeing it in a guide to good English. We done had it.
>  What a shock fer us at ns. We was good talkers after all.
>
>  dInIs
>
>
>  >---------------------- Information from the mail header
>  >-----------------------
>  >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  >Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>  >Subject:      Re: wheel barrel
>  >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  >
>  >Hm. Are all initial /w/s devoiced?
>  >
>  >On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >
>  >>  FWIW, in East-Texas middle-class BE, "wheel barrel" is the standard
>  >>  "correction" of local [hwi at l bae@]. Also, "Wilson" being a very rare
>  >>  name locally, the locals always call me by the hypercorrected
>  >>  [hwi at ls@n] instead of *[wi at ls@n]. I've never liked my name, so I kinda
>  >>  dug being "Wheelson."
>  >>
>  >>  -Wilson
>  >>
>  >
>  >--
>  >Mark Mandel
>  >
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>
>
> --
>  Dennis R. Preston
>  University Distinguished Professor
>  Department of English
>  Morrill Hall 15-C
>  Michigan State University
>  East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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