Date:  Sun, 23 Nov 1997 12:31:42 -0500
From:  "Dennis R. Preston" <preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Why = hwy or wy? (A Tale of Two Regions)

First, /hw/ is dying in Michigan (thought you'd like to moarn).

Second, you ain't got no linguistic marraige problems at all! I am a
standard American English speaker from Louislville marreid to a
starnge-talking Wisconsinite. Of course, I am a post-vocalic /l/ vocalizer
(or even deleter in some cases). I pretty completely delete it in 'wolf,'
and, although it is not a high-frequency word around our house, whenever I
say it, my wife looks at me and starts to bark.

DInIs

>At 09:36 PM 11/22/97 -0500, you ("Bethany K. Dumas" <dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTK.EDU>) wrote:
>>I've been aware for some time that my /hw-/ ~ /w-/ usage is variable; I
>>think it fits the pattern that DInIs describes (and Garland Bills also
>>claims) --
>>
>
>Well, as long as we're onto this, these things can cause great troubles in a
>marriage when they come up at the wrong moment, you know! I was raised in
>Michigan and say "hwy" (initial aspiration) for "why," and my wife, who was
>raised till age 10 in New York City, and thereafter by a relative in
>Michigan who had also been raised in New York City, says "wy" and only "wy."
>For fifteen years she has bugged me from time to time about the fact that I
>say "hwy" not "wy" (most of us probably know how it is with relationships
>and getting one's way etc...).
>
>It's because she notices it the most when I am asking her a question she
>does not want to answer. Do I need to draw a picture here? So when the
>discussion on a given topic reaches the point where (hwair) I am trying to
>get her to give a good reason for whatever (hwutevr) she is advocating at a
>given juncture, so's I can take it apart systematically and (of course) get
>my way on the issue at hand, I'll say, "Yes, but hwy?" She'll almost
>invariably try to derail the interrogation by responding, "Hwy? Hwy? Hwy?
>Hwy? Hwy? Wy do you put that stupid extra sound at the front and
>overenunciate? Wut's yer problem? Wy do you always do that?"
>
>Part of my problem on this topic results from the fact that when she and I
>got married and first came to NYC I ran across folks who had, or were trying
>to affect, boarding-school accents (with or without the actual educational
>experience to ground them, natch), of the semi-RP/BBC east-coast variety. As
>a basically perverse type I went through a period of making a point of
>speaking midwesternly, with the idea that if anyone was going to think I
>knew what I was talking about I wanted it to be for content not accent....
>
>Thus ends my brief lesson on the convolutions of regionalism,
>status-markers, pragmatics, etc. etc.... Glad I got that off my chest. I
>feel much better now!
>
>Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu

Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736