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With all due respect, our good family friend lives in Mt. Lebanon (?) and almost everyone there, like all of the south puts the h before the w.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nashvols
Maybe there, but not here.
Local pronunciation here (Middle Tennessee) is more like this:
Where sounds like wear
Why sounds like the the letter Y
What sounds like wut
Whistle sounds like wissle
White sounds like wite
You have to remember that there are many different variations of the Southern accent. Some rhotic, some non-rhotic. Some with twang, some with drawl. Appalachian is very different from coastal. New Orleans and Charleston accents sound nothing alike.
Uh........it was a joke. Do you not find it funny/ironic that the word phonetically is not spelled phonetically?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon
Lots of our words are not spelled phonetically.
But that's really beside the point. My point was a rebuttal to your assertion that Southerners are pronouncing these words oddly. They're (we're) pronouncing them correctly.
Uh........it was a joke. Do you not find it funny/ironic that the word phonetically is not spelled phonetically?
Over time people are pronouncing words different but don't change the spelling .The English is so old that if you gone in time Machine to past they would not understand you today.
Then what's the point of spelling it Wh if you pronounce it Hw? Why not spell it "correctly"?
Are you new to the English language? lol
And I have to somewhat disagree with your assertion that ALL Southerners talk this way. I'm an African American from the coastal plain area of SC and we don't pronounce our "wh" words that way.
I used that word specifically to point out something - BOTH pronunciations of the words you brought up, and the word "clothes" are indeed correct. However, "my" Southern way of pronouncing them is the first listed, and therefore more common - and also definitely correct -way of pronouncing them.
With all due respect, I'm a native. I think I know how people tawk aroun' here.
We have other transplants from the South, so maybe you've heard it from some of them.
Lebanon or Mount Juliet. Take your pick. They're in the same county.
Sorry, I always get the two confused and somehow combined them, lol. Just do me a favor now that I have brought it up; consciously listen for it and lemme know in this thread if you hear it. I bet you will.
I used that word specifically to point out something - BOTH pronunciations of the words you brought up, and the word "clothes" are indeed correct. However, "my" Southern way of pronouncing them is the first listed, and therefore more common - and also definitely correct -way of pronouncing them.
You're making a mountain out of a molehill.
How so? I just find it fascinating that virtually an entire region of the country pronounced words that start with "wh" "hw". Hwy does this bother you?
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