twoth

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>For me, the claim that /hw/ could be replaced by /w/ by a
>native speaker of English was nonsense. There was no way that such a
>title could be a pun. At the Army Language School, a barracksmate once
>asked whether I had noticed that the "h" in words beginning with "wh"
>was not pronounced. ....

I had the same sort of reaction in approx. 1970:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0203C&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&P=7216

I did a mini-experiment on a couple of youngsters a while back:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0203B&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&P=2580

Times are a-changing, I guess.

-- Doug Wilson


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