[Ads-l] The pronunciation of "dwarf"

[Galen Buttitta]

I have [kOr4r] for <quarter> (and [kOr?] or [kOrt] for <quart>).

– Galen Buttitta, Protagonist

> On Apr 4, 2019, at 19:23, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I've never heard this, but it makes as much sense as / sOrd /.
> 
> Tim Conway (of McHale's Navy fame) put out some comic videos in the '80s
> in which he played "Dorf," who was indeed a  / dOrf /.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1PBe22oqiE,
> 
> JL
> 
>> On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 4:48 PM Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> In a recent conversation with a friend, within an interval of about 20
>> seconds he pronounced the word “dwarf” four times without the /w/. I asked
>> him about the pronunciation, and he insisted that that’s the only way he’s
>> ever heard it pronounced (obviously untrue, since he had just heard me ask,
>> “Do you always pronounce “dWarf” without the /w/?”).  He is a retired
>> linguistics professor in his late 60’s, white, who lived in Maryland and
>> Delaware from birth through his early adulthood.
>>            None of the dozen dictionaries I consulted record a w-less
>> pronunciation of “dwarf.” Of the several specialized pronunciation
>> dictionaries that I looked at, only one does--the Oxford Dictionary of
>> Pronunciation for Current English (2001), which shows the “w” inside
>> parenthesis marks, which means (according to the introduction) that the “w”
>> belongs to an “optional pronunciation” in American English.
>>            Is the pronunciation without the /w/ at all common?  Is it
>> regional?
>> 
>> 
>> --Charlie
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org