End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Nov 1997 to 22 Nov 1997 ************************************************ Subject: ADS-L Digest - 22 Nov 1997 to 23 Nov 1997 There are 9 messages totalling 274 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. pragmatic change in progress? (2) 2. Why = hwy or wy? (A Tale of Two Regions) 3. Lippi-Green's Eng with an Accent (3) 4. whore (2) 5. Seeing the Elephant & W(h)etting your Whistle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 23:15:26 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: pragmatic change in progress? DInIs writes: >I'm a /hw/-/w/ distinguisher; that is, 'whale' and 'wail' are not >homophones for me. > >BUT - interrogative why ('Why did you do that?') is always /hw/ in my >speech, and the discourse marker 'why' ('Why, it's on the the other side of >the room') is invariably /w/. > >Any other standard speakers out there like me who have this distinction >(not /hw/ - /w/ in general; lots of us old codgers from some places have >that, but this specific sepaation of the two 'whys')? Well, of course it's the way you describe it. Anything else would be artificial. I can remember wondering as a kid who both hwy and wy are spelled alike. There seemed to be no pragmatic relation between them As I've read postings on this topic I've been trying to remember where, recently, I saw some piece of fiction that used the spellings 'why' and 'wye' for these two forms.