hawk/hock

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:50 AM -0400 7/18/02, Catherine Aman wrote:
>Me too; I born & raised in Penna.
>
>My grandmother had an accent that seems to be gone forever. I've forgotten
>many of her distinctive phrasings, but do remember that she pronounced
>"world" as "whirled" and "larch" (the tree) as "lahch" (and, strangely, used
>the word "cunning" to describe something cute or pretty.)  She was born and
>raised in Salem, Mass. Anyone ever come across a young person who speaks
>this way?
>
Anyone from Boston or Eastern New England or New York who speaks a
non-rhotic dialect (in which /r/ is not pronounced as a consonant at
the end of a word or before a consonant) will approximate the "lahch"
pronunciation.  The stereotype is "pahk yaw cah in Hahvahd Yahd".
I'm not sure in what sense "world" would merge with "whirled" rather
than vice versa:  do you mean it begins with the hw- sound (voiceless
w) that some speakers use in "whether" as opposed to "weather"?  I
pronounce "world" and "whirled" as homonyms, neither with hw-.  As
for "cunning", the American Heritage Dictionary has

ADJECTIVE:
1. Marked by or given to artful subtlety and deceptiveness.
2. Executed with or exhibiting ingenuity.
3. Delicately pleasing; pretty or cute: a cunning pet.

I assume sense 3 is indeed regionally restricted (maybe because I
don't have it myself).  If I had my copy of DARE on me, I could check
to see if it's specifically found in Boston and Eastern
Massachusetts, or perhaps more generally in that part of New England.
(I haven't encountered it here in New Haven.)

Larry