Heard on The Judges: "Wheelie"

[Wilson Gray]

Mid-twenty-ish black couple describing an incident involving a motorcycle:

He: "She said that the _horse_ wouldn't do a woolie [wUlI] (wheelie)."

Judge Joe Brown: "Wouldn't do a weelie [wiLI] (wheelie)."

She: "That's right. Then he come down the street doin' a woolie."


Shift of /Li/ to /lI/, motivating the shift of /i/ preceded by /w/ to
/U/. Okay. I can live with that. But, /hw/ to /w/?! Aaarrrggghhh!!!

FWIW, _horse_ as "motorcycle" isn't yet in the Urban Dictionary.

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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