wheel barrels?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

I'm just a blue-collar bloke, but I can add some anecdotal information on
what really happens. If I dictate a piece of text to a typist, I might use
the word "frontoparietal". I speak very clearly and I do not reduce the
second "o" to a schwa or anything like that. What is typed? This: "frontal
parietal". If I point out the error to the typist, and speak the same word
the next day, elongating and stressing that "o" so that there's no way it
could be "-al" (IMHO), then what is typed? Probably "frontal parietal"
again. Other similar compound words with "-o-" get similar treatment. I've
experienced this hundreds of times, and I've given up on trying to get it
typed right; I just edit the text myself afterward. The same result was
obtained with multiple typists. The lesson (I think): /ou/ will often be
understood as /l/ or /@l/ if an apparently acceptable word (or words) will
result ... doesn't matter whether the /ou/ is stressed or whatever. I
suppose this is at least approximately in agreement with Dennis.

I agree entirely with Larry that the phenomenon depends on whether the
version with /l/ seems "reasonable". In the case of "wheelbarrow" this is
sort of folk-etymology. I also used this folk-etymology concept in my
(entirely speculative!) etymologizing of "bulldyker" < "Boudicca" (which I
posted here a while back): again "bull" is more recognizable than "bo" or
"bu" and seems to fit the context.

-- Doug Wilson