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

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Doug Wilson wrote:
>
> 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?

Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> For me and Chuck Berry, it rhymes with "push."

In all of the AAVE eye-dialect examples that I've seen (admittedly not a
large sample), "wush" is only used as a verb with an object clause (as in
Chuck B.'s "you wush you could").  Is it even possible to use the /wUS/
variant as an intransitive verb, or as a noun?  If it always appears as
V + obj. clause, perhaps that's an indication that the vowel in /wUS/ has
been influenced by "would" /wUd/.  "Would" historically has been used like
this form of "wish" -- though such usage is rare nowadays, except in the
formations "would rather (that)" and "would sooner (that)".

If that's the case, then Mick J. wasn't too far off when he misconstrued
the line in "Carol" as "you can't dance, I know you would you could"
(though I suspect he thought this was some exotic AAVE shortening of "you
would [dance] if you could").


--Ben Zimmer