wheel barrel

[Dennis Preston]

I think Wilson's point is that this hypercorrection in unfamiliar
words, or, perhaps, better, ones which the speakers would not know
how to classify into the /hw/ versus /w/ set (assuming they were not
native speakers of the distinction). Such hypercorrection is very
reasonable for the period Wilson describes; I member kids from the
40s ourside my home area (where we were all /hw/ers) telling me that
their teachers tried to provide them with the distinction, and when I
was in the third grade I member us little lowland hillbillies'
amazement at seeing it in a guide to good English. We done had it.
What a shock fer us at ns. We was good talkers after all.

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: wheel barrel
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Hm. Are all initial /w/s devoiced?
>
>On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  FWIW, in East-Texas middle-class BE, "wheel barrel" is the standard
>>  "correction" of local [hwi at l bae@]. Also, "Wilson" being a very rare
>>  name locally, the locals always call me by the hypercorrected
>>  [hwi at ls@n] instead of *[wi at ls@n]. I've never liked my name, so I kinda
>>  dug being "Wheelson."
>>
>>  -Wilson
>>
>
>--
>Mark Mandel
>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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