Hypercorrection of /w/-/hw/

[Baker, John]

        Every Kentucky farmer I've ever known, including my father, said "wo" to halt his mules.  I'm not familiar with the ho or hwo pronunciations.  Maybe it's a horse/mule thing, I dunno.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Peter A. McGraw
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 1:49 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Hypercorrection of /w/-/hw/

But do you say "wo" or "ho"?

I understood from the previous discussion that there was a consensus that
the discourse marker is [wo], never [hwo], and this has also been my
observation.  My original message was meant to address the horse command
exclusively, which in my experience is always [ho], not [hwo] (or [wo]).
This being the case, I was wondering aloud where the form [hwo] came from
or whether it still actually exists.

Peter Mc.

*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************