Heard on the Today show: "whuppin'"

[James Harbeck]

>I've seen "... _whoop_-ass" in print. But, for me, the pronunciation
>of "whoop" falls together with that of "hoop," as any dictionary will
>agree, which causes me to doubt that whoever wrote that had ever heard
>the phrase spoken. He was probably totally devoid of any kind of
>linguistic knowledge, and had not even done much reading, even of
>cartoons.

I'm inclined to think it's influenced by "whoopee," which, at least
around these parts, is [wUpi] rather than [wupi].

But no doubt its usage, while a reference to AAVE, is not authentic!

James Harbeck.

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