wush (was Re: "Sock It to Me")

[Douglas G. Wilson]

MW3 shows the variant pronunciation /wUS/ for "wish".

In those 'eye-dialect' examples of "wush" is the pronunciation /wUS/
(rhymes with "push") or is it /wVS/ (rhymes with "lush") or is it some
mixture of these? Do we know for sure? Is /wU/ an expected variant of /wV/,
or vice-versa, or not?

"Wush" is one conventional Scots spelling of "wiss" (= "wish"). SND on-line
gives several examples from 19th and 20th century Scots. My little "Concise
Scots Dictionary" seems to indicate a pronunciation /wVS/ (along with
/wIs/, /wIS/, /wVs/).

-- Doug Wilson