Date: Sun, 3 Dec 1995 11:52:53 -0700
From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: /w/ and /hw/
If English whore derives from Latin karus , it must be as a loan-
word, much too late for Grimm's Law. So then it should be *core , which it
ain't. So much for armchair etymologizing. In such questions, my sainted
OE professor, Rudolph Willard, used to repair to the OED, which informs us
that OE had hore (possibly derived from ON), and that the wh spelling is
a 16-th century refinement (I would guess on the model of whole ). But any
connection with a Latin /k/ would have to be at a pre-Latin level, not a
direct borrowing.
--Rudy Troike (back in the fray again!)