"Whip," "whup," " whoop"

[Jonathan Lighter]

My feeling is the same.  How did this "whoop" for "whup" even get started ?  Maybe writers  thought that "whup" must rhyme with "pup" and "whoop" must then have the vowel of "book."

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: "Whip," "whup," " whoop"
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Has anyone else noticed - and, likewise, perhaps, been annoyed by -
the shift in the eye-dialect spelling of the non-standard
pronunciation of "whip" from "whup" to "whoop"? For me, "whup" has the
pronunciation [hwUp], wherein ]U] is the -oo- of "book." OTOH, "whoop"
is an sE word with the pronunciation, [hup], as in in the blues line,
"Whoopin' [hupIn] 'n' holl'in', screamin' awl night lawng." As a
child, I suffered the indignity of an occasional ass-whuppin'. But, an
ass-*whoopin'*? I don' think so.
--
-Wilson Gray




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