Shouldn't this thread be in FT? Really, this isn't the type of content that this forum needs.
I do often, though when talking to friends in school or street or whatever I talk fast and don't even say THs.
[QUOTE=IrishGamer;40121462]There's usually a few seconds in which we toss insults back and forth, you can pick up on how people talk in that short period of time.
No one's called my mother a hwore yet.[/QUOTE]
Considering the w is silent anyway you cant not call someone a hwore?
[QUOTE=Zeke129;40121010]Language changes and I don't think the original spelling is relevant. We pronounce and spell [I]many[/I] words differently today.
I wouldn't say one is wrong, and that's why I said silly instead of wrong.[/QUOTE]
I didn't imply that maintaining distinction between W and HW/WH was a superior way of speaking to not making the distinction. I was just trying to prove that the merger was a rather new thing, and therefore the original way isn't stupid or wrong (neither is the new one).
[QUOTE]Irish guy here, I've been to almost every county in Ireland and I've never heard anyone use the HW sound.
Who talks like that, anyway? [/QUOTE]
Did you do the candle test I outlined several posts after OP?
If saying a word like WHERE when your mouth is in front of a candle causes a blowing effect in the flame, you have the sound.
If it's unaffected, you don't have it.
It's a rather subtle thing, not a "HHHHHHHHHHHwe:(r)" or anything the like.
Here's what Wkipedia says about the wine-whine-merger, by the way:
[QUOTE][B]The wine–whine merger[/B] is a merger by which voiceless /hw/ is reduced to voiced /w/. It has occurred historically in the dialects of the great majority of English speakers. The resulting /w/ is generally pronounced [w], but sometimes [hw̥]; this may be hypercorrection.
[B]The merger is essentially complete in England, Wales, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and is widespread in the United States and Canada[/B]. In accents with the merger, pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, weather/whether, wail/whale, Wales/whales, wear/where, witch/which etc. are homophonous. [B]The merger is not found in Scotland, Ireland (except in the popular speech of Dublin, although the merger is now spreading more widely), and parts of the U.S. and Canada[/B]. The merger (or the lack thereof) is not usually stigmatized except occasionally by very speech-conscious people, although the American television show King of the Hill pokes fun at the issue through character Hank Hill's use of the hypercorrected [hw̥] version in his speech. A similar gag can be found in several episodes of Family Guy, with Brian becoming extremely annoyed by Stewie's over-emphasis of the /hw/ sound in his pronunciation of "Cool hWhip" and "hWil hWheaton".
According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 49),[3] while there are regions of the U.S. (particularly in the Southeast) where speakers keeping the distinction are about as numerous as those having the merger, there are no regions where the preservation of the distinction is predominant (see map). [B]Throughout the U.S. and Canada, about 83% of respondents in the survey had the merger completely, while about 17% preserved at least some trace of the distinction[/B].
The wine–whine merger, although apparently present in the south of England as early as the 13th century,[4] [B]did not become acceptable in educated speech until the late 18th century[/B]. While [B]some RP speakers still use /hw/, most accents of England, Wales, West Indies and the southern hemisphere have only /w/[/B].[/QUOTE]
[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_wh[/URL]
To be honest, as a non native speaker I didn't even know that there was any other way to pronounce why (I don't use the HW sound)
Haven't thought about it, turns out that I pronounce as HW sometimes, and other times I don't, mostly without it. As far as I knew, ignoring the HW sound would confuse a native speaker. Guess I was wrong.
Non-native speaker here by the way.
My sociology professor does that. I always wanted to ask him to say Cool whip.
Victorian, Australian here: why is sounded like hwhy - but the h sound is very subtle.
Live in North-East England. Only ever heard one person speak like that, and it was my Irish Business Studies teacher like 6 years ago.
[QUOTE=AidanCKY;40130235]Live in North-East England. Only ever heard one person speak like that, and it was my Irish Business Studies teacher like 6 years ago.[/QUOTE]
Live in North-West England. Most people here don't speak properly at all.
"Oi mate were ya goin', wat ya lookin' at nob'ed I'll knock you owt!"
[QUOTE=juhana;40119981]That's because the words that now begin with WH were originally both WRITTEN AND PRONOUNCED with a HW. [/QUOTE]
That would be like pronouncing Adder as Nadre because that's how it originally was. Languages evolve and if you don't evolve with them then you're, frankly, wrong. I understand that regional dialects would be treasured and many wish to preserve them but something like this is so minor it's in most situations a hypercorrection, as the wikipedia article on this pointed out.
[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;40130448]Live in North-West England. Most people here don't speak properly at all.
"Oi mate were ya goin', wat ya lookin' at nob'ed I'll knock you owt!"[/QUOTE]
I think thats the majority of the UK :(
English needs a spelling reform for fuck's sake. And no, I do not pronounce it as hw.
[QUOTE=JaspertheDoxie;40137153]English needs a spelling reform for fuck's sake. And no, I do not pronounce it as hw.[/QUOTE]
at least it's not as bad as french.
generally the more french our english words are, the worse they are to spell.
I think it was a shit move to adopt any Latin based words.
So much linguistic purism in this thread. Fact: there is no proper and improper way to pronounce sounds, as there are many different dialects and accents of English, each with slightly different sounds. To state that one way is better or more proper than another is silly and pompous. I have heard "hw" from a teacher from Oklahoma, and it was much more common in the olden days as well.
Not, I don't add an H when I "where". If I did, it'd sound like "W-hair"
only when i say "whom" or "whence"
I'm English, you don't get much more native than that.
I don't say hwip I say wip
I'm Scottish and I use hw.
I guess sometimes when I say whore.
[QUOTE=Quq;40155571]only when i say "whom" or "whence"[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=jbthekid;40162752]I guess sometimes when I say whore.[/QUOTE]
I thought "Whom" and "Whore" used the H sound?
I've never used the Hw sound. I'm from Wisconsin, northern United States bordering Canada.
[QUOTE=Bernie Buddy;40165233]I thought "Whom" and "Whore" used the H sound?[/QUOTE]
They do... :/
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