Pronunciation of words begining with wh like whale.
muzic...@yahoo.com
"whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
beginning, as if the w & h were transposed - like the way Al Gore
pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
and illogical.
This runs counter to the whole idea of "sounding out" a word - the
letters are pronounced in the order they're written. It's not spelled
hwale, it's spelled whale.
And I still say Brett Favre pronounces his name wrong.
Alec McKenzie
> There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
> beginning, as if the w & h were transposed -
If you don't pronounce "whale" as if the w & h were transposed, how
else do you pronounce it? I see only two alternatives in practice:
1. Keep w & h in order and pronounce it "wuhail"
2. Ignore the h and pronounce it "wail"
Neither of these sounds right to me.
--
Alec McKenzie
alecusenet@<surname>.me.uk
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
removed):
hwaet - what
hwaer - where
hwael - whale
It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
'hw' pronunciation still survives.
>And I still say Brett Favre pronounces his name wrong.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I think the vast majority of English speakers use your No. 2.
muzic...@yahoo.com
> If you don't pronounce "whale" as if the w & h were transposed, how
> else do you pronounce it? I see only two alternatives in practice:
>
> 1. Keep w & h in order and pronounce it "wuhail"
>
> 2. Ignore the h and pronounce it "wail"
I pronounce it the correct way...as per option 2 above.
The wh combine with the h silent. You wouldn't pronounce "that" as tuh-
hat.
muzic...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
> removed):
>
> hwaet - what
> hwaer - where
> hwael - whale
>
> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
> 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
It's time to bury it.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
Good luck with your efforts to bury it.
Let me know hwenne you have been successful.
Matthew Huntbach
The "wh" spelling convention was developed at a time when this really
was a separate sound, a voiceless "w". It can sound like "hw", just as
the Welsh voiceless "l", which they write as "ll", can sound like "hl".
In some accents of English - I think in most parts of Scotland, for
example - the distinction is still solid, and most people will
pronounce, say "witch" and "which" differently and accept them as
words with different pronunciations.
The distinction seems to have disappeared in standard British English
very recently, perhaps just in the 20th century, hence it may still be
heard in very fussy speech and old-fashioned teachers may still insist
the "hw" pronunciation is correct. An exaggerated "hw" pronunciation may
be an attempt to hang on to a usage which is disappearing by forcing an
emphasis on it.
Matthew Huntbach
nanc...@verizon.net
> There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
> beginning, as if the w & h were transposed - like the way Al Gore
> pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
> something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
> silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
> tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
> and illogical.
So, you had Miss Hennessey too?
She had us hold our hands up to our mouths while we said various words
that started with either "wh" or "w" and insisted that we practice
until we could feel our breath on our hands for the "wh" words, but
not feel it for the plain "w" words.
This may have been the first time I realized that there'd be times in
my life where I'd know a person in a position of authority was just
plain nuts, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Bill McCray
This is weird. It's all news to me. Here in the States, I think I
have heard very few people, if any, who don't pronounce "witch" and
"which" differently.
My daughter has just finished a 3.5-year assignment in England. She
lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so that was my main location during
visits, but I made two visits to Dumfriesshire, two to the Loch Ness
area, and two to Aberdeenshire (all in Scotland) and one to
southwestern England and London. In my visits there, I never noticed
anyone not pronouncing the "h" in "wh" words in which it is pronounced
here.
Maybe none of the people I talked with used "standard British English"
pronunciation.
Bill
----------------------------------------------------------------
Reverse parts of the user name and ISP name for my e-address
Pat Durkin
Car 54, wear are you? Wen in the course of human (how about the people
who say "ofyuman") events. Wile I hear some people say "while", etc,
without the "h" sound, I must say it is my habit to say "while, etc"
with a rather pronounced "h" sound. I think there is a relatively even
mixture of both pronunciations in my area.
--
Pat Durkin
Wisconsin (Not Whis, and certainly not Wes. Maybe more like a Wuss.)
Joshua Holmes
: There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
: "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
: beginning, as if the w & h were transposed - like the way Al Gore
: pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
: something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
: silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
: tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
: and illogical.
This is actually common speech in Appalachia, but not in much else
of the rest of America. A college friend from West Virginia is the only
person I've ever heard make the w/wh distinction.
--
Joshua Holmes - jdho...@stwing.org
Per aspera, luctor et emergo.
Matthew Huntbach
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:38:03 +0100, Matthew Huntbach
> <m...@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
>> On Fri, 11 Apr 2008, muzic...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>> There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
>>> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
>>> beginning, as if the w & h were transposed - like the way Al Gore
>>> pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
>>> something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
>>> silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
>>> tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
>>> and illogical.
>> In some accents of English - I think in most parts of Scotland, for
>> example - the distinction is still solid, and most people will
>> pronounce, say "witch" and "which" differently and accept them as
>> words with different pronunciations.
>>
>> The distinction seems to have disappeared in standard British English
>> very recently, perhaps just in the 20th century, hence it may still be
>> heard in very fussy speech and old-fashioned teachers may still insist
>> the "hw" pronunciation is correct. An exaggerated "hw" pronunciation may
>> be an attempt to hang on to a usage which is disappearing by forcing an
>> emphasis on it.
> This is weird. It's all news to me. Here in the States, I think I
> have heard very few people, if any, who don't pronounce "witch" and
> "which" differently.
Yes, I wasn't writing about the States.
> My daughter has just finished a 3.5-year assignment in England. She
> lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so that was my main location during
> visits, but I made two visits to Dumfriesshire, two to the Loch Ness
> area, and two to Aberdeenshire (all in Scotland) and one to
> southwestern England and London. In my visits there, I never noticed
> anyone not pronouncing the "h" in "wh" words in which it is pronounced
> here.
Yes, that's what I wrote - the distinction is still solid in Scotland,
and the majority of your visits were to Scotland. Possibly too the
distinction is kept more in the far north of England than in it
further south, maybe too in the south-west. My feeling, however,
is that it has largely disappeared in many parts of England.
> Maybe none of the people I talked with used "standard British English"
> pronunciation.
The "standard" for British English" tends to be taken to be the accent of
educated people around London. Not Scotland. Not the north of England.
Not the south-west of England. So, yes, from the points you mention, most
of those you met would not have used "standard British English". In fact
most people in and around London ALSO don't use "standard British English",
they use some form of what is known as "Estuary English". "Estuary English"
seems to represent the natural way that British English is developing,
which is why many people denounce it as some sort of slovenly or degenerate
English. My feeling is that in "Estuary English" the wh/w distinction has
largely disappeared, if it remains it's only when people are trying to talk in
a deliberately careful manner.
The sort of "standard British English" heard, for example, in television
broadcasts, is formally known as "Received Pronunciation", but one can tell
that is changing and taking on forms which are more advanced in
"Estuary English" by listening to old broadcasts - the accents of BBC
presenters speaking in the 1960s now sound quite strange and affected to
ordinary British ears, they no longer reflect the speech even of
educated people, at least young to middle-aged people, in south-east England.
Matthew Huntbach
Matthew Huntbach
Bill McCray has just said the exact opposite about the States - he claims
to find it "weird" even to hear that some people don't make a w/wh
distinction.
Matthew Huntbach
James Silverton
??>> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
??>> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
??>>
??>>> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
??>>> removed):
??>>>
??>>> hwaet - what
??>>> hwaer - where
??>>> hwael - whale
??>>>
??>>> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'.
??>>> The 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
??>>
??>> It's time to bury it.
PDB> Good luck with your efforts to bury it.
PDB> Let me know hwenne you have been successful.
Are you implying that pronouncing the "h" is common in
Australia?
As is indicated in a later post, the "hw" pronunciation may be
regional but is quite standard in Scotland. Again, if it is
common in Appalachia, that might be because a large number of
the original settlers were Scottish. Perhaps, some Canadian
speaker will tell me how "whale" is pronounced in Ontario, where
other Scottish sounds still persist, eh!
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Athel Cornish-Bowden
In which part of the US do you live? I have come across many Canadians
who effortlessly distinguish between w and wh, but I don't remember
noticing it in the US (mostly California). I don't distinguish myself,
though I had teachers (in England in the 1950s) who tried to make us
distinguish. However, I doubt whether most of them did themselves when
they weren't thinking about it.
--
athel
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<not.jim....@verizon.not> wrote:
> Peter wrote on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:35:52 +0100:
>
> ??>> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
> ??>> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
> ??>>
> ??>>> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
> ??>>> removed):
> ??>>>
> ??>>> hwaet - what
> ??>>> hwaer - where
> ??>>> hwael - whale
> ??>>>
> ??>>> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'.
> ??>>> The 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
> ??>>
> ??>> It's time to bury it.
>
> PDB> Good luck with your efforts to bury it.
> PDB> Let me know hwenne you have been successful.
>
>Are you implying that pronouncing the "h" is common in
>Australia?
>
'Ow did Haustralia creep into this discussion?
>As is indicated in a later post, the "hw" pronunciation may be
>regional but is quite standard in Scotland. Again, if it is
>common in Appalachia, that might be because a large number of
>the original settlers were Scottish. Perhaps, some Canadian
>speaker will tell me how "whale" is pronounced in Ontario, where
>other Scottish sounds still persist, eh!
>
>
>James Silverton
>Potomac, Maryland
>
>E-mail, with obvious alterations:
>not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
--
James Silverton
??>> Peter wrote on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:35:52 +0100:
??>>
??>>>> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
??>>>> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
??>>>>
??>>>>> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
??>>>>> removed):
??>>>>>
??>>>>> hwaet - what
??>>>>> hwaer - where
??>>>>> hwael - whale
??>>>>>
??>>>>> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became
??>>>>> 'wh'. The 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
??>>>>
??>>>> It's time to bury it.
??>>
PDB>>> Good luck with your efforts to bury it.
PDB>>> Let me know hwenne you have been successful.
??>>
??>> Are you implying that pronouncing the "h" is common in
??>> Australia?
??>>
PDB> 'Ow did Haustralia creep into this discussion?
Sorry, wrong Peter! Got up late this morning.
??>> As is indicated in a later post, the "hw" pronunciation
??>> may be regional but is quite standard in Scotland. Again,
??>> if it is common in Appalachia, that might be because a
??>> large number of the original settlers were Scottish.
??>> Perhaps, some Canadian speaker will tell me how "whale" is
??>> pronounced in Ontario, where other Scottish sounds still
??>> persist, eh!
Bill McCray
I've traveled throughout the U.S., having visited all but three of the
states. I have not noticed "wh" being pronounced as "w" anywhere.
Similarly, the people I hear on TV make the distinction.
I live in central Kentucky. The Appalachian Mountains begin maybe
fifty miles east of here, so our regional accent is affected by that
(for example, I use a standard long I where it is followed by an
unvoice consonant, but the Appalachian long I otherwise).
You might be tempted to claim that I am hearing a distinction that
speakers are not making. That might be possible in other cases, but I
have heard a few people not make the distinction, so it can't be that
I am hearing a distinction that isn't there.
It appears that the w/wh distinction varies from nil to strong in
speakers and that listeners have varying thresholds for how strong the
distinction must be to notice it. Your threshold is obviously much
higher than mine. That's the only way I can justify our different
experiences.
HVS
I'd agree with the Canadian mention; the distinction strikes me as
entirely normal, and I'd be surprised if I don't distinguish them.
(My mind's ear certainly hears a difference.)
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Athel Cornish-Bowden
[ ... ]
>
> You might be tempted to claim that I am hearing a distinction that
> speakers are not making. That might be possible in other cases, but I
> have heard a few people not make the distinction, so it can't be that
> I am hearing a distinction that isn't there.
>
> It appears that the w/wh distinction varies from nil to strong in
> speakers and that listeners have varying thresholds for how strong the
> distinction must be to notice it.
This is a good point you're making here. If someone who spoke English
in the 9th century were to miraculously appear among us today they
would say that _no one_ today distinguishes between w and wh today,
because they would expect to hear a much stronger h than anyone sayus
today.
According to Larry Trask's popular book on language (which I'm quoting
from memory, so there will doubtless be errors), the story of the the
letter h in English is not a success story. In Old English h could
appear just about anywhere in a word (for example in the combination
hn) and was always very vigorously pronounced. Over the centuries most
of the h's have been lost in speech even if they survive in spelling,
and where they survive they survive weakly. According to him, initial h
has largely been lost in BrE, and that most of us would be surprised to
realize how small an area of England is populated by people who
normally pronounce h at the beginning of words. As Devon is one of the
counties where he said initial h had disappeared I have listened
carefully to people's pronunciation in pubs (the sort of pubs locals go
to, not the ones that cater from rich visitors who think that if the
food is expensive enough it must be good), and my ears tell me he's
wrong -- that at least 75-80% of local people in, say, Newton Abbot,
pronounce h at the beginning of a word. However, he was a linguist,
which I am not, and he was also American, so maybe he expected a more
vigorous h than I would, so I wouldn't claim that he was definitely
wrong, only that my very unscientific sampling suggested that he might
be.
Incidentally, and nothing much to do with h in English, the same book
has a wonderful account of the battles over the letter h in Basque,
which in the 19760s and 1970s almost made the Basque people forget that
Franco's government was more of a threat to them than disagreements
about whether to write h in certain words.
> --
athel
Martin Ambuhl
It may be that the great majority of British English speakers do, but
British English speakers represent an (ever-diminishing) minority of
English speakers.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
Correct. I don't now recall what I intended to write, perhaps
"English English", but the statement as written is clearly
wrong.
Alec McKenzie
> On 2008-04-11 16:34:15 +0200, Bill McCray <McCra...@SpringMind.com> said:
>
> [ ... ]
> >
> > You might be tempted to claim that I am hearing a distinction that
> > speakers are not making. That might be possible in other cases, but I
> > have heard a few people not make the distinction, so it can't be that
> > I am hearing a distinction that isn't there.
> >
> > It appears that the w/wh distinction varies from nil to strong in
> > speakers and that listeners have varying thresholds for how strong the
> > distinction must be to notice it.
>
> This is a good point you're making here. If someone who spoke English
> in the 9th century were to miraculously appear among us today they
> would say that _no one_ today distinguishes between w and wh today,
> because they would expect to hear a much stronger h than anyone sayus
> today.
What such a person might expect could only be guess-work, as no
recordings of spoken English from the 9th century have survived.
Athel Cornish-Bowden
Of course they haven't, but linguists have other ways of deducing how
old languages were pronounced. At the most obvious level, spelling
mistakes commonly made by scribes are often a guide to which letters
were pronounced. So it's by no means guess-work.
--
athel
Alan Jones
"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:8h4vv3h1kjessamrc...@4ax.com...
NSOED shows only the versions without a sounded "h". Wells' _Longman
Pronouncing Dictionary_ shows both, indicating that the "h" version is usual
in AmE, that without "h" in BrE. He gives a graph for "white", showing that
a BrE sample in 1998 had about 78% not pronouncing the "h". The younger the
speaker, the more likely he or she was to omit the "h". Both Wells and NSOED
represent "standard" English (modified RP or GenAm); the "h" is certainly
pronounced in some regions of the UK, notably Scotland.
Alan Jones
R H Draney
>
>The distinction seems to have disappeared in standard British English
>very recently, perhaps just in the 20th century, hence it may still be
>heard in very fussy speech and old-fashioned teachers may still insist
>the "hw" pronunciation is correct. An exaggerated "hw" pronunciation may
>be an attempt to hang on to a usage which is disappearing by forcing an
>emphasis on it.
If you want an exaggerated "hw" pronunciation, check out Cab Calloway's
recording of "Minnie the Moocher", in which he admits that Minnie had a heart as
big as a hey-ha-wail....r
--
What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone?
Adrian Bailey
news:fabcc331-929f-4486...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
> pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
> something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
> silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
> tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
> and illogical.
It sounds odd to me too, but it's hardly illogical. The digraph wh is, in
theory, supposed to be pronounced hw.
> This runs counter to the whole idea of "sounding out" a word - the
> letters are pronounced in the order they're written. It's not spelled
> hwale, it's spelled whale.
Digraphs like wh, th, ch, ay, ow cannot be "sounded out". They have to be
learned as separate letters. And there are other features of English that
cannot be sounded out, like, for example, the "magic e". "Whale" isn't
pronounced "wally".
Adrian
Frank ess
My parents spent the first few winters after their 1935 marriage in
the back-country of northeastern Utah. Those were tough winters,
according to them, and after sundown they were pretty much confined to
a thirty-by-fifteen-foot cabin. They played acey-ducey, Monopoly, read
aloud to each other (and infant me). Hwat happened was that my mother
corrected my father's "lazy" wut, ware, wen, wys enough times that he
developed a subtle w-hut, w-hare, w-hen, w-hie sound I can hear
distinctly, fifteen years after he went to his rest. It was
apparently satisfactory to them both, and they often spoke about the
process, as part of family history that was worthy of transmission to
following generations.
I'm guessing if you have a lot of time on your hands in northern
climes, and spend it with pronunciation-conscious folk, you're more
likely to cover the hware-ware territory and reach a resolution.
In keeping with my usual practice, I hear w-hut I want to hear, and it
includes the aitch, w-heather or not it is there.
--
Frank ess
Fred
> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
> beginning, as if the w & h were transposed - like the way Al Gore
> pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
> something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
> silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
> tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
> and illogical.
>
> This runs counter to the whole idea of "sounding out" a word - the
> letters are pronounced in the order they're written. It's not spelled
> hwale, it's spelled whale.
>
>
I was taught that wh is an asperated sound made by almost inaudibly
'blowing' an f in front and ignoring the h. e.g.fwether.
Robert Lieblich
>
> On Apr 11, 6:49 am, Alec McKenzie <alecuse...@my-surname.me.uk> wrote:
>
> > If you don't pronounce "whale" as if the w & h were transposed, how
> > else do you pronounce it? I see only two alternatives in practice:
> >
> > 1. Keep w & h in order and pronounce it "wuhail"
> >
> > 2. Ignore the h and pronounce it "wail"
>
And many people pronounce it the correct way...as per option 1 above.
There's no single "correct" in this instance. The variety of posts on
the subject should make that clear. Most Americans go "hw"; I'm one
of them.
> The wh combine with the h silent. You wouldn't pronounce "that" as tuh-
> hat.
True, but "th" has a pronunciation that differs from that of its
constituent letters. So do "ch" and "gh." In fact, each has more
than one distinct pronunciation. (If "ch" gives you pause, consider
"loch".) So what's so weird about having a distinct pronunciation for
"wh"? For that matter, would you pronounce "who" as "woe"?
Others have covered the switch from "hw" to "wh", so I'll pass on
that.
In general, relying on spelling as your only basis for English
pronunciation is a good way to drive people away.
--
Bob Lieblich, AmEclectic
Y not?
Robert Bannister
> On Apr 11, 6:49 am, Alec McKenzie <alecuse...@my-surname.me.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>If you don't pronounce "whale" as if the w & h were transposed, how
>>else do you pronounce it? I see only two alternatives in practice:
>>
>>1. Keep w & h in order and pronounce it "wuhail"
>>
>>2. Ignore the h and pronounce it "wail"
>
>
>
> I pronounce it the correct way...as per option 2 above.
>
> The wh combine with the h silent. You wouldn't pronounce "that" as tuh-
> hat.
I do wonder whether a spelling change occurred at some point. I don't
know Anglo-Saxon, but I do know there were a number of words in Old High
German and Middle High German that were spelt with hw and hr.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
>
> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
> removed):
>
> hwaet - what
> hwaer - where
> hwael - whale
>
> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
> 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
The hw spelling shows much more clearly the relationship with Latin qu
and Slav kv in all those question words. I find it amusing that those
people who affect the hw in "where" give up when it comes to "who".
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Bill McCray has just said the exact opposite about the States - he claims
> to find it "weird" even to hear that some people don't make a w/wh
> distinction.
I suspect many people "hear" what they expect to hear. I recall John
Dean saying he had always heard "ing" with a hard G in southern England,
and recently I claimed to have only heard "us" with a z. There have been
other examples in other threads. Probably, we don't hear all that
carefully, but guess.
--
Rob Bannister
Bill McCray
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <alpine.LRH.1.10.0...@frank.dcs.qmul.ac.uk>
> I have to wonder where he lives. I've never heard a w/wh difference
> unless someone was trying to sound snooty and silly.
Central Kentucky.
Pat Durkin
"Robert Bannister" <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:66ag84F...@mid.individual.net...
But how many modern skippers of "h" in "when" come out with "woo"?
I go the other way, of course, and say "hoo", owling about a bit.
I just can't help this: When exasperated with the six of us, Mom called
us "you young whelps", and she winded the "wh". Then she "whipped" us
all (with a willow withe) and we ran "whining" and "whimpering" to bed.
Pat Durkin
You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and
blow.
Where the eff does the "f" come from?
muzic...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> As is indicated in a later post, the "hw" pronunciation may be
> regional but is quite standard in Scotland.
And if it's not Scottish...it's CRAP!!!
you had to see the SNL skit.
muzic...@yahoo.com
> I find it amusing that those
> people who affect the hw in "where" give up when it comes to "who".
Hwoo are you referring to?
muzic...@yahoo.com
<jdhol...@coruscant.stwing.upenn.edu> wrote:
> This is actually common speech in Appalachia, but not in much else
> of the rest of America. A college friend from West Virginia is the only
> person I've ever heard make the w/wh distinction.
Marrying your sister isn't common elsewhere either.
So we should take grammatical cues from the center of the inbreeding
universe.
Glenn Knickerbocker
>> 'blowing' an f in front and ignoring the h. e.g.fwether.
The same place as the spelling "phew," I think.
ŹR "I love Blip just because it's the absolute opposite of fun"
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/travelog/19990710.html --Kibo
Don Aitken
The Scots were still spelling these words with "qu" in the 16th
century. Lindsay of Pitscottie consistently uses these forms; writing
of the death of James II, he says that he "did stand neir hand by the
gunneris quhen the artaillezerie was dischargeand". I think there are
probably 17th century examples, too.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Pat Durkin
> On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 03:13:34 GMT, Pat Durkin wrote:
>>> 'blowing' an f in front and ignoring the h. e.g.fwether.
>> Where the eff does the "f" come from?
>
> The same place as the spelling "phew," I think.
Now, I have been thinking about that expression (great minds, and all
that), because that is one of those words in which I ignore the "h" and
say "pew" as in Pepe le. However, I recall a thread in AUE in which I
discovered that the Brits (or some of them, anyway) _do_ pronounce the
"ph" with the eff sound. Four or five years ago?
Mike Lyle
Yes: OE used "hw-". The word for "whale", for example, was "hwael".
The little Icelandic whaling ships have a letter "H" on their funnels
for "hvalvei�askip", and I think the word is still "hval" in general
Scandiwegian. OTOH, until you said the above, my extremely inexpert
impression was that even Old High German /didn't/ seem to have
aspiration in any of their cognates of our "wh-" words; of course they
don't now, anyhow. (NOTE: when Tera News isn't on the fritz, a message
from me may appear here looking very like this one, but in which I say
something different about OHG. To spare my embarrassment, please
ignore it.)
I'm not at all sure why we changed the spelling to "wh-", but I'll
make a small bet it's because our ancestors stopped sounding the "h"
very early on. OED has one example of h-less "wale" from the 14C. Its
earliest "wh-" version dates from c1330, with intermediate versions
using "qu-" as in various Scots words.
--
Mike.
Robert Bannister
I understand that some Scots and possible a few Irish people do
pronounce those words with a rather aspirated "kw".
--
Rob Bannister
Oleg Lego
On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:56:51 -0500, Pat Durkin posted:
Weird. I always pronounce a 'ph' as 'f'. Comes from growing up with
that combination of letters in my name, I guess.
Mike Lyle
Yes: OE used "hw-". The word for "whale", for example, was "hwael". The
little Icelandic whaling ships have a letter "H" on their funnels for
"hvalveiğaskip", and I think the word is still "hval" in general
Scandiwegian. OTOH, even Old High German conspicuously doesn't seem to
have aspiration in any of their cognates of our "wh-" words.
I'm not at all sure why we changed the spelling to "wh-", but I'll make
a small bet it's because our ancestors stopped sounding the "h" very
early on. OED has one example of h-less "wale" from the 14C. Its
earliest "wh-" version dates from c1330, with intermediate versions
using "qu-" as in various Scots words.
--
Mike.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
Ting Tong
"Alec McKenzie" <alecu...@my-surname.me.uk> wrote in message
news:alecusenet-2A23E...@news.aaisp.net.uk...
> muzic...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
>> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
>
> If you don't pronounce "whale" as if the w & h were transposed, how
> else do you pronounce it? I see only two alternatives in practice:
>
> 1. Keep w & h in order and pronounce it "wuhail"
>
> 2. Ignore the h and pronounce it "wail"
>
The 'wh' sound should be aspirated, not sounded as a hard 'wuhu'. There
should be a soft breath out when it is pronounced.
Mike Lyle
>>> This runs counter to the whole idea of "sounding out" a word - the
>>> letters are pronounced in the order they're written. It's not
>>> spelled hwale, it's spelled whale.
Just so you know, you really are quite insane. You'll fit in fine here.
>>>
>>> And I still say Brett Favre pronounces his name wrong.
Never heard of him.
>>>
>>
>> I was taught that wh is an asperated sound made by almost inaudibly
>> 'blowing' an f in front and ignoring the h. e.g.fwether.
>
> You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together
> and blow.
Dhat's a ressipee for a Brongx tsheer, not a hwissul.
>
> Where the eff does the "f" come from?
Comes in very handy for music-hall Irish, as for the voice of Omar
Khayyam when I was reading /The Land of Green Ginger/ to the
niblings--(experto crede: the characterisation was not a tactical
boo-boo).
--
Mike.
ExTex
pronunciation by writing the word whale on a piece of paper. Then, show it
to the next person you meet and ask him to pronounce it. You should get the
answer to your ridiculous argument. Take this test for the led for a news
story. Does it answer the question for content: Who, What, Where, When,
Why. Read a newspaper story and see if it has those elements of information
in the first paragraph. So, how do you pronounce whale?
Retired news writer.
<muzic...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fabcc331-929f-4486...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> There seems to be a camp who insist that words beginning with wh like
> "whale" "white" should be pronounced with a "hwuh" sound at the
> beginning, as if the w & h were transposed - like the way Al Gore
> pronounces it in that campy commercial that ran recently where he says
> something like "a whale is in trouble" and runs off. This sounded
> silly to me years ago in elementary school when a teacher tried to
> tell us this was "proper" and I still think it sounds affected, silly
> and illogical.
>
> This runs counter to the whole idea of "sounding out" a word - the
> letters are pronounced in the order they're written. It's not spelled
> hwale, it's spelled whale.
>
Pat Durkin
> In message <CJ6Mj.8391$2g1....@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com>
>
> 'Phew' is not pronounced at all, it's a quick exhalation of breath,
> much like 'tsk' is a tongue-click.
Oh, so now you are going to insist that you say "whew" when you smell a
fart?
I use "whew" to express a great bit of heat and effort (sweat), or when
I am amazed at the speed with which someone accomplishes something (or
other amazing things). It is a silent (wll, next-to-silent) whistle.
John Kane
> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
> wrote:
>
> > The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
> > removed):
>
> > hwaet - what
> > hwaer - where
> > hwael - whale
>
> > It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
> > 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
>
Why? To me whales and Wales are two completely different words. I
have not noticed whether this is standard Canadian usage or just local
but it seems normal to me. Whales pronounced as wales sounds like a
serious error. The Prince of Whales [sic] apparently has run into this
problem.
John Kane Kingston ON Canada
John Kane
wrote:
>
> ??>> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" ??>> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
> ??>>
> ??>>> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
> ??>>> removed):
> ??>>>
> ??>>> hwaet - what
> ??>>> hwaer - where
> ??>>> hwael - whale
> ??>>>
> ??>>> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'.
> ??>>> The 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
> ??>>
> ??>> It's time to bury it.
>
> PDB> Good luck with your efforts to bury it.
> PDB> Let me know hwenne you have been successful.
>
> Are you implying that pronouncing the "h" is common in
> Australia?
>
> As is indicated in a later post, the "hw" pronunciation may be
> common in Appalachia, that might be because a large number of
> the original settlers were Scottish. Perhaps, some Canadian
> speaker will tell me how "whale" is pronounced in Ontario, where
> other Scottish sounds still persist, eh!
"hwail". "wail" sounds like someone cannot distinguish between
zoology and biology. The Prince of Wales may be interested in whales
but the words don't sound the same.
R H Draney
>
>On Apr 11, 7:22=A0am, muzicia...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> On Apr 11, 6:57=A0am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
>> > 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
>>
>> It's time to bury it.
>
>Why? To me whales and Wales are two completely different words. I
>have not noticed whether this is standard Canadian usage or just local
>but it seems normal to me. Whales pronounced as wales sounds like a
>serious error. The Prince of Whales [sic] apparently has run into this
>problem.
Kind of spoils one of the jokes in the animated "Yellow Submarine"....
Paul: "Look, it's a school of whales."
Ringo: "They look a little bit old for school."
Paul: "University then."
Ringo: "University of whales."
John: "They look like drop-outs to me."
....r
--
What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone?
Fred Springer
> John Kane filted:
>> Why? To me whales and Wales are two completely different words. I
>> have not noticed whether this is standard Canadian usage or just local
>> but it seems normal to me. Whales pronounced as wales sounds like a
>> serious error. The Prince of Whales [sic] apparently has run into this
>> problem.
>
> Kind of spoils one of the jokes in the animated "Yellow Submarine"....
>
> Paul: "Look, it's a school of whales."
> Ringo: "They look a little bit old for school."
> Paul: "University then."
> Ringo: "University of whales."
> John: "They look like drop-outs to me."
>
"Land of My Fathers"]:
Whales! Whales!
Bloody great fishes are whales!
They swim in the sea
And that's where they pee
So never drink tea from the sea.
Yes, I know -- adolescent isn't it. So was I at the time.
Robert Bannister
The fact that they are different words is irrelevant. There are many
homophones in English, and I don't think we have a problem with "Wales"
and "wails".
--
Rob Bannister
Oleg Lego
On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:25:22 -0700 (PDT), John Kane posted:
>On Apr 11, 7:22 am, muzicia...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
>> > removed):
>>
>> > hwaet - what
>> > hwaer - where
>> > hwael - whale
>>
>> > It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
>> > 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
>>
>> It's time to bury it.
>
>Why? To me whales and Wales are two completely different words.
Of course, but that does not preclude pronouncing them differently.
"Two", "too" and "to" are also completely separate words.
>I
>have not noticed whether this is standard Canadian usage or just local
>but it seems normal to me.
It's probably local. I pronounce them identically, and do so for many
other, similarly differentiated words (ware, wear, where. wen, when.
etc.), and though I occasionally hear a "hw.." in conversation, it
always strikes me as strange and uncommon, which most likely speaks to
its relative scarcity.
> Whales pronounced as wales sounds like a
>serious error. The Prince of Whales [sic] apparently has run into this
>problem.
When the local Rona store opened in Regina a few years ago, their
"Grand Opening" ad said it was located on "Prince of Whales Avenue".
Glenn Knickerbocker
>I use "whew" to express a great bit of heat and effort (sweat), or when
>I am amazed at the speed with which someone accomplishes something (or
>other amazing things). It is a silent (wll, next-to-silent) whistle.
That's the sound I usually see spelled "phew," a single diffuse
descending whistle. To my ear, the start of it is more of a velar
fricative than a labial one, fwich is fwy that spelling mystifies me. If
I'd never seen it written, I would probably write "sheew."
"Whew" usually stands for the ascending-and-descending whistle of relief
at something done just on time or barely within some other constraint.
I rarely hear the nonvocal sound that "pew" represents, but I'd say it
sounds more like "phew" to me than the one written "phew" does. Much
more often, I hear the spoken word "pew" or the more emphatic, elongated
"P.U." (which at least one of my grade-school teachers objected to
because it included the word "pee").
ŹR "Yodelei-yo-Domini-hoo!" http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/missa.txt
RIGHT NOW! IYKWIM! AITYD! The clown! On fire! In fortune cookies!
Glenn Knickerbocker
>answer to your ridiculous argument. Take this test for the led for a news
>story. Does it answer the question for content: Who, What, Where, When,
>Why.
In my speech, the "h" disappears completely from "what" in this list
because the "oo" vowel continues right into the glide, but the rest
remain weakly aspirated no matter how fast I rattle them off.
ŹR http://users.bestweb.net/~notr How much must it suck to be the
world superstar at something that no one cares about? --Marc Goodman
Amethyst Deceiver
3affbc...@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, muzic...@yahoo.com says...
I'm taking my grammatical cues from someone who can spell.
--
Linz
Wet Yorks via Cambridge, York, London and Watford
My accent may vary
Pat Durkin
> On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 09:55:29 -0500, Pat Durkin wrote:
>> I use "whew" to express a great bit of heat and effort (sweat), or
>> when I am amazed at the speed with which someone accomplishes
>> something (or other amazing things). It is a silent (wll,
>> next-to-silent) whistle.
>
> That's the sound I usually see spelled "phew," a single diffuse
> descending whistle. To my ear, the start of it is more of a velar
> fricative than a labial one, fwich is fwy that spelling mystifies me.
> If I'd never seen it written, I would probably write "sheew."
Where are you originally from, Glenn, that you uses such an "unamerican"
? Or maybe only my little island of the world uses the "p" sound to
initiate this wrinkled- nose word. I expect that, if I lived in Alaska,
I would be using it a lot, now that the snow is gone. My nephew lived
in Bethel for a year. He saw the dog-shit accumulating on the snow and
said he just dreaded the thought of it thawing in the spring. Of
course, as the thaw came, the stuff worked its way down through the top
of rotting snow by making little pits and tunnels.
>
> "Whew" usually stands for the ascending-and-descending whistle of
> relief at something done just on time or barely within some other
> constraint.
That is what I was describing, I think, in the para about heat and
effort.
The "f" or "fhew" sound is what I used to use when I first encountered
the word in writing. But that was before I put the spelling together
with my regional (usage).
>
> I rarely hear the nonvocal sound that "pew" represents, but I'd say it
> sounds more like "phew" to me than the one written "phew" does. Much
> more often, I hear the spoken word "pew" or the more emphatic,
> elongated "P.U." (which at least one of my grade-school teachers
> objected to because it included the word "pee").
Also pronounced by mothers changing diapers as "Oh,PYOU-wee, PYOU-wee".
Adam Funk
> When the local Rona store opened in Regina a few years ago, their
> "Grand Opening" ad said it was located on "Prince of Whales Avenue".
Was this on 1 August (Melville's birthday)?
--
This sig no verb.
John Holmes
> In message <fto6l...@drn.newsguy.com>
> R <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>> If you want an exaggerated "hw" pronunciation, check out Cab
>> Calloway's recording of "Minnie the Moocher", in which he admits
>> that Minnie had a heart as big as a hey-ha-wail....r
>
> I just listened to "Jazz Greats - Minnie The Moocher" a Cab Calloway
> collection and I have no idea what you are talking about. sounds
> like "hart as big as a wale" to me.
>
> I listened to a version on itunes:
>
> <http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=265637923&s=143441>
>
> <http://snurl.com/2476z>
>
> And I still have no clue what you are talking about (the whale part is
> in the 30 second sample, about 21 seconds in).
>
> I pulled out the only other version I have, the Blues Brothers
> Soundtrack, and I still think you're nuts!
>
> The line is at 0:50 in that track and sounds excatly like 'wale' to
> me.
Dadoctah is not wrong. It's in the 1931 recording at about 46 seconds
in.
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
Tom P
Pat Durkin
> John Kane wrote:
>> On Apr 11, 7:22 am, muzicia...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>> On Apr 11, 6:57 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
>>> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Old English originals are (with ligature and accent
>>>> removed):
>>>> hwaet - what
>>>> hwaer - where
>>>> hwael - whale
>>>> It is less than a thousand years since 'hw' became 'wh'. The
>>>> 'hw' pronunciation still survives.
>>> It's time to bury it.
>>
>> Why? To me whales and Wales are two completely different words. I
>> have not noticed whether this is standard Canadian usage or just
>> local but it seems normal to me. Whales pronounced as wales sounds
>> like a serious error. The Prince of Whales [sic] apparently has run
>> into this problem.
>>
>>
> I've noticed a very distinct 'hw' sound in some Scottish accents.
It's in my regional usage pattern.
--
Pat Durkin
durkinpa at msn.com
Wisconsin