w(h)igger

[David Bowie]

From:    Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM
> Andrea writes:
>> somebody (Mark Mandel, i think) wrote:

>>> And since American pronunciation does not distinguish between
>>> the spellings "w" and "wh", the "wh-" in the spelling can't be
>>> a transcription;

>> Er, not entirely.  I have known Americans, myself among them, to
>> continue the distinction, at least some of the time.

> I plead guilty to only the letter of the charge. The distinction is
> rare and not always consistent, and I don't think it likely to have
> applied here.

The distinction may be generally rare, but reports of its death have been
greatly exaggerated, to borrow a phrase.

The undergrad students in my classes from out here in Utah generally have
the distinction pretty strongly, and are nearly as shocked and stunned to
find out that there are places where people say wail and whale the same as
they are when they find out that there are places where people say cot and
caught differently.

David Bowie