Heard on the Today show: "whuppin'"

James Harbeck jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA
Tue Oct 28 17:10:53 UTC 2008


>I've seen "... _whoop_-ass" in print. But, for me, the pronunciation
>of "whoop" falls together with that of "hoop," as any dictionary will
>agree, which causes me to doubt that whoever wrote that had ever heard
>the phrase spoken. He was probably totally devoid of any kind of
>linguistic knowledge, and had not even done much reading, even of
>cartoons.

I'm inclined to think it's influenced by "whoopee," which, at least
around these parts, is [wUpi] rather than [wupi].

But no doubt its usage, while a reference to AAVE, is not authentic!

James Harbeck.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list