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I have heard native English speakers in the U.S. with a habit of attempting to pronounce the "h" in words that start with "wh". "white" being a notable example.
by brightsize 13y ago
I have heard native English speakers in the U.S. with a habit of attempting to pronounce the "h" in words that start with "wh". "white" being a notable example. Furthermore, in their efforts they transpose the two letters, so "white" comes out as "hwight" rather than "wite". I've always thought this to be some sort of affectation intended to elevate themselves above the hoi polloi, but maybe there's some historical basis for it.
- bane 13y agoMy understanding is that it's a middle U.S. accent-ism. Broadcasters learn to speak with this accent as it's perceived "neutral" (General American) and many end up using it. It's not part of my native local mid-East coast accent (the 'h' is silent in words like "white") and it drives me crazy when I hear it on the radio. In the golden radio and early tv days, broadcasters and actors learned to speak with a "mid-atlantic" or transatlantic accent that was constructed to sound like something halfway between American and British Englishes. For a while, it was even taught in upper-class private schools in the U.S. North East. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American
- thaumasiotes 13y agoYou realize your link indicates that whine and wine are pronounced the same in standard american english (or as you've called it, "general american")? edit: in fact, the whine-wine merger's own page indicates that the only place they're not merged is a strip of the american South.
- t__r 13y agoLike this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lich59xsjik#t=52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=li... and this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nae9L4EdRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nae9L4EdRs
- brightsize 13y agoThose are great! But yeah, nails it, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y agoTourists from the USA in the UK always sounds funny when pronouncing place names that have "ham" in them. The UK English way of saying these place names is Buckingum and Birmingum, not BuckingHam and BirmingHam.
- brightsize 13y agoI would have said BuckingAm myself. Speaking of the UK, how on earth did Worcester come to be pronounced "Wister". At least that's the way it's pronounced in the U.S. northeast, when referring to the city in central Massachusetts. The Brits threw New England a whole bunch of curveballs.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y agoI'd pronounce that Wooster
- 6cxs2hd6 13y agoActually I always hear it pronounced Wuhster. Although maybe you did mean "oo" as in "wood" (the sound I hear around here) rather than "root".
- MLR 13y agoYeah it's a schwa, rather than an oo.
- gpjt 13y agoLikewise, Wooster as in Bertie. On that note, I've always found the pronunciation of Towcester amusing. It's a town... and it cooks bread!
- mratzloff 13y agoLike the pronunciation for "forecastle" (fowk-sul), it's a pronunctiation borne out of expediency or laziness.
- 13y ago
- JonnieCache 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection#H-adding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection#H-adding
- nmeofthestate 13y agoA totally different thing from what the parent was referring to.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 13y agoA person affecting the pronunciation might ask you to hwait while they see to something.
- gpjt 13y agoThere is a historical basis, yes. The original form for at least some of those words is to start with "hw". For example, the first line of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is "Hwaet! We Gardena in geardagum". "Hwaet" is the word that became "what" in modern English, and was (given that when the poem was written people tended to spell relatively phonetically) presumably pronounced. According to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=what&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc... it's from a Proto-Germanic form *khwat. I don't know when or why the "h" and the "w" got swapped around, though. Certainly, when people pronounce the "h" it it's more like "h-wot" than "w-hot". Actually, perhaps even more like "f-wot". I guess the question is still open as to whether the people who pronounce the "h" today are continuing an unbroken tradition that goes back to the Anglo-Saxons (and the majority who don't are using a simplified form), or whether the "h" dropped out of use sometime after the spelling was fixed, and modern speakers are re-introducing it. I can say, though, that it's generally regarded as "better" to pronounce the "h" by a lot of English people, and it's also strongly pronounced in certain Scottish accents. (Some friends from "posh" parts of Edinburgh definitely pronounce it, and also say something like "Wed'n'sday" pronouncing the "d".) (Aside: I've read that the "what!" at the start of the poem was a use of the word as something similar to "ah!" or "lo!" or some other relatively meaningless poetical interjection. This gives a wonderful historical context to P.G. Wodehouse's characters greeting each other with a "what, what, what, old thing!". Bertie Wooster was apparently using a construction that dated back a thousand years...)
- dwc 13y agoNorwegian for "what" is "hva", with a silent H. But I swear I can hear a hint of the H sometimes. Also, hvem, hvilken, hvor, hvit for who, which, where, white, &c. Swedish has dropped the H (along with other differences) giving vad, vem, vilken, var, vita for what, who, which, where, white.
- gpjt 13y agoInteresting! Makes sense given the common heritage in Proto-Germanic.