Date:  Sun, 3 Dec 1995 18:26:18 -0500

From:  "Dennis R. Preston" <preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU>

Subject: Re: /w/ and /hw/



Rudy,

Of course you are right. Perhaps some of us slipped into saying 'derived

from' when we meant 'cognate with.'

Now we know the source of the 'wh'; a very late analogy, but I'm still not

sure about the vowel. I take your citation to be of 'hore' with a long

vowel(?) If so, it should be ModEng [u] as I have heard it in Northern

American use. Why is the majority usage [o]?

Dennis



>    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!)