[hw-] v. [w]

[Jonathan Lighter]

When I was growing up we had better things to worry about than saying /hw-/. Like ICBMs and getting the Yankees to win the World Series every year forever.  (I'll bet you young folks think "ICBM" is just some kind of scatological joke, but never mind that.) It wasn't till college, with a man in the White House who wasn't afraid to say, "I am not a crook," that I was taught there were people in my America who actually said /hw-/. All day long.  And expected to keep right on saying it.

  They actually distinguished between "which" and "witch" like spelling wasn't good enough for 'em.  Well, it took a while for yours truly to come to terms with this.  Until I did, I was as tongue-tied as young Scotty here.

  But it's like those Old Englishmen with words like "hnaef" and "Wealhtheow." They expected to keep right on saying them.

  We'll see who laughs last on this one too.

  JL
Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Scot LaFaive
Subject: Re: [hw-] v. [w]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't have an [h] anywhere near my [w]'s (Wisconsin dialect), so I don't
even know what this sounds like. Any good sound files for this?

Scot


>From: sagehen
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: [hw-] v. [w]
>Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:27:55 -0400
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: sagehen
>Subject: Re: [hw-] v. [w]
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >I still contend it is -wh- , not -hw-, the -w- being a
> >vowel (hence its name, double u), unstressed, often
> >unvoiced, before the -h-. .]
> >
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>See, or more to the point listen to, Flanders & Swann: " I'm a Gnu".
>
> > [I do not put an -h- in -weird-, there is no -h- in -weird-, it's
> >pronounced >(ou)eared.
>
>This was, of course, a joke.
>
>Back to [hw-] v. [w] in general, do non-hw speakers carry this even to the
>word "whistle?"
>AM
>
>~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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