Heard on the Today show: "whuppin'"

[Charles Doyle]

Yes, definitely a lexified "nonstandard" pronunciation (cf. "heist," etc.).  The pronunciation more strictly represented by the spelling "whipping"--and perhaps the speling itself--would be inappropriate in certain situations.

By analogy: The proverb "Bros before hos" (sp?) cannot reasonably be written (much less pronounced) as "Brothers before whores"--by anybody!

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:34:57 -0400
>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>
>At 9:27 AM -0400 10/28/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>Matt Lauer, speaking of how to react to a bully:
>>
>>" ... Give him a _whuppin'_! ..."
>>
>>
>>What struck me is that Lauer spoke _whuppin'_ as though that was the standard pronunciation in his dialect, when we know that it isn't. No air quotes, special intonation, facial expression, etc.
>>
>>Is this becoming or has it become a hip, slang-pronunciation among sE speakers?
>>
>This has been standard for some time in venues like ESPN's SportsCenter for the metaphorical extension:  one team invariably gives another team a whuppin', never a whippin' (or whipping).
>
>LH

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