Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:51:56 -0400

From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA

Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy



P.S. Why are we all assuming that the only possible spelling pronounciation of

"waft" would be the one used for "raft"? Given the existence of those other

"wa" words (and "qua" words) with "broad a", e.g. "wad", "what", "wasp",

"quaff", "waffle", etc., wouldn't it be possible that someone seeing "waft"

would look at the beginning as well as the end and guess that it would be pro-

nounced "wahft"? Would a Southerner unfamiliar with waffles (but familiar with

raffles) come up with "waeffle" as opposed to "wahffle" as the spelling pro-

nunciation? I'm not sure how explanatory this particular line of explanation

really is.



i'm with larry on this one. but this whole string has me worried

about my ability to follow arguments or our ability to communicate

with each other.



peter's suggestion that it should be "wahft" where it's perceived as

a literary item seems to go against the facts (of our own

speech/attitudes) that ellen and i presented:



- ellen pronounces it "waeft" and suggested in her post that it's an

"educated" word.



-i pronounce it "wahft" and alleged that it's a common word. (or at

least not rare and certainly not "literary"--though i'm really

starting to wonder what other people mean by this. i think waft is not

a word that i read more often than i hear.)



-peter suggests

In that case, where "waft" is perceived as literary, I'd

predict you'd be more likely to get /wahft/ guesses, just because

literary = prestigious = British standard, and the only permitted

pronunciation in the OED is the FATHER rime. Maybe it's those insecure

non-Southerners that have introduced variation into an otherwise

homogeneous AmEng word-class!



i didn't see any evidence that _waft_ is more literary in the north

than in the south here. if anything, there is evidence to the

contrary, though certainly not enough to base any conclusions on.



one problem in the discussion seems to be that there are two kinds of

thinking on what the issue is. peter, and some others i think, is

talking about how you'd guess it's pronounced. whereas i'm thinking

about how people learn to pronounce it (from hearing it in their

environment). since all the southerners have reported "waeft"

pronunciations and the northerners who aren't guessing (who

presumably learned it from other northerners) report using "wahft", i

don't think we have a pattern of guessing. i think we have a real

regional distinction.



now, i did ask before how it might have come to be that those who say

"waeft" do so, since "wahft" seems to be the older form (and without,

i presume, coming to say "swaen" [swan] and "waeffle"), which

might've brought up the guessing thing. i have a hard time believing

that "somebody along the way guessed 'waft'" as an explanation for a

form that is so widespread and (as larry noted) contrary to the usual

pronunciation of wa-.



lynne