cold wittles--(why w-?)

[sagehen]

>"Wittles" (with "w') looks like a hypercorrection, as if "vittles" isn't
>the standard pronunciation. I don't have my books on Cockney speech handy,
>but I remember reading that Cockneys (often? always?) pronounce /v/ like
>/w/.  E.g., "when" can be pronounced "ven."
>     Many English, including Cockneys, came to the U.S.  Maybe some of
>them, trying to improve their speech, hypercorrected "vittles" to
>"wittles."
>I remember an educated Slovenian, who immigrated to the U.S. and  would
>sometimes speak of the "hills and walleys" of this or that country. He was
>perfectly capable of saying "valleys" but must have assumed that if
>words like German "wenn," "was," "wo" (pronounced with /v/ are
>are "when," what," and "where" in English, then "valley" must be a foreign
>(and hence incorrect) pronunciation of what is properly "walley."
>
>Gerald Cohen
>
 ~~~~~~~~~~~
But why the "vittles/wittles" spelling, anyway?  Why not
"victuals/wictuals," since the pronunciation is the same?  I suppose it's a
kind of eye-dialect to convey  the spelling ignorance of the speaker?
A. Murie

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