aquinas_0Feb 25
Joyce Lionarons

Something I was wondering about this morning: native English speakers, do you pronounce initial [wh] and initial [w] differently? I.e., is there a difference in the way you pronounce 'which' and 'witch' or 'whether' and 'weather'?

Please boost for reach.

Yes
27.4%
No
67.9%
Huh?
4.8%
Poll ended at .
Feb 25 at 12:15pmWeb
Show threadGillingerFeb 25
@joyce
Not here in the north of England! I have heard older RP (Received Pronunciation, the Queen's English or early BBC-speak) give a very slight extra emphasis (almost like a very faint whistling sound) on "wh" but I suspect that's all but died out.
Show threadJoyce LionaronsFeb 25

@Gillinger

I think it's dying out in the US as well. When I was a child in the 1950s, I was drilled on the difference by an elementary school teacher, and later on, in the 2000s, I was chastised by a stuffy professor for pronouncing 'whale' without the h.

Maybe it's just Boomers who differentiate now.

Show threadGillingerFeb 25
@joyce
Life's too short to worry about it, much like the Oxford Comma! ๐Ÿ˜
Show threadCharnockFeb 25

I would pronounce the slightest "h" in those.

But I'm northern irish so it might be poor dental care

@Gillinger @joyce

Show threadCharnockFeb 25

My children wouldn't pronounce the "h" in Whale or Which or Whether though, so probably age more than regional.

@Gillinger @joyce

Show threadSusanna the Artist ๐ŸŒปFeb 25
@joyce @Gillinger Here in the Southeast US, people of all ages still pronounce them differently.
Show threadDB SchweinFeb 25

@joyce @Gillinger

I was trained in speech in school (theatre major) so that may be why despite being younger, there's a definite, though subtle, difference. A slight breathiness on the wh.

Show threadRichard GrantFeb 25
@joyce @Gillinger I was rather startled during my brief career as a high school English teacher to to discover that my students found my pronunciation, as one young lady put it, cute โ€” because my rendering of words like โ€œwhichโ€ and โ€œwitchโ€ was, it seemed, weirdly distinct . Brief hilarity ensued while they thought of words to get me to pronounce in my peculiar fashion.
Show threadyour auntifa liza ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ท ๐Ÿฆ› ๐ŸฆฆFeb 25

my Irish American in-laws were old school New Englanders from the Poconos region. my FIL was first generation Irish American: his ma and da were folks off the boats at Ellis Island.

neither of them spoke with that fricative.

yet i noticed it immediately on Bob Ross. he uses it, ever so lightly in his early shows when he worked harder at hiding his southern (northern Floridian, to be exact) accent.

i think that USian fricative is more regional than generational.

@joyce @Gillinger

Show threadRyan QuinnFeb 25

@joyce Itโ€™s more the regional dialect I grew up with then a generational thing.

Hard syllables are softened in Southern-like accents, and as much as I tried not to pick up an accent, I still have an accent. ๐Ÿ˜†

@Gillinger

Show threadJames ๐Ÿฆ‰ #FBPE ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บFeb 25
@Gillinger @joyce It was a bit of a hypercorrection too right? Over emphasising aitches to sound posh, like Mrs Bucket (pronounced Bouquet)
Show threadC++ Wage SlaveFeb 25

@Gillinger @joyce

Agreed: older RP speakers distinguish, but younger ones don't.

The distinction is much more common in Scotland than in England. Americans don't always realise, it but there's a huge range of accents in these British Isles โ€” it's not a binary choice between Downton Abbey and Cockney.

Show threadkpfssportFeb 25
@Gillinger @joyce similarly Northern but I do have a slight h sound sometimes
Show threadDamonHDFeb 25
@Gillinger @joyce I'm a fairly posh RP speaker, albeit with some Yorkshire influences, who was hauled up in front of my uni linguistics class decades ago to demonstrate most of the IPA vowel chart to incredulous Scots for example, and do not make that distinction.
Show threadAspiringLudditeFeb 25

@joyce

It is diagnostic for some regional accents, IIRC.

Show threadJoyce LionaronsFeb 25

@AspiringLuddite

In which country/countries?

Show threadAspiringLudditeFeb 25

@joyce

I'd have to go searching to find out.

(Although wikipedia suggests Scotland, Ireland, and the Southern use retain the digraph pronunciation (hw).)

Show threadDon RayFeb 25

@joyce

I donโ€™t pronounce them differently, but there are (were?) areas where there was a distinction. Growing up, I remember hearing it from some elderly folks from rural Missouri.

Show threadTom ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆFeb 25

@joyce

Very, very slightly different

Show threadHighlandLawyerFeb 25
@joyce
You might be interested in looking into Scots (language) & Scottish English on this. A lot of the words which went from Old English hw- to modern English wh-, in Scots were spelled quh-, and in some modern dialects (eg Aberdonian) are f- or in others retain the definite h sound, which often carries over into the relative Scottish English dialects.
Show threadProto Himbo EuropeanFeb 28
@HighlandLawyer @joyce I'm aware of (but not familiar with) research on how linguistic and other cultural patterns from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, etc. were transferred to the USA in the past few hundred years by immigrants from those regions. Most of what I vaguely remember focused on these patterns still being noticeable (especially in music and some social customs) in Appalachia. Now I'm wondering if and how /Wh/ might appear in that space.
Show threadEndlessMasonFeb 25
@joyce
"A little" or "the second time, if I have to repeat myself"
Show threadChris TurnbowFeb 25

@joyce

hwat?

Show threadKnitronomiconFeb 25
@joyce well, not usually, no...
Show threadDaNannerFeb 25
@joyce I remember a tongue twister as a kid- Which witch is which (or something like that) and you had to make the other person understand what you meant
Show threadTwoowls Elt ๐Ÿฆ‰ ๐Ÿฆ‰Feb 25
@DaNanner @joyce my daughter loves this one: if two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch
Show threadAlan Langford ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿงค๐ŸงŠๆ‘Feb 28
@twoowls73 @DaNanner @joyce Great. My brain is now going "which-watch, witch-watch" with a "tick-tock" cadence.
Show threadBenrob0329Feb 25
@joyce GenZ USian here, there is only the very slightest if I'm enunciating especially carefully. Normal conversational speech has no audible difference.
Show threadsunflowerinrainFeb 25

@joyce
I pronounce them differently (unless trying to blend in): firstly because of strict elocution in primary school, but more importantly because my favourite singing teacher* insisted on the aspirate.

* Eileen Poulter: marvellous, occasionally scary, and much missed.

Show threadmausmaloneFeb 25

@joyce IDK if it's even really audible but "wh"is definitely back-of-the-mouth sound for me, while "w" is tighter.

It's not the clear Old English "hwaet" instead of "what," though.

Show threadFlaming CheetoFeb 25
@joyce depends on how recently I've watched Family Guy
https://youtu.be/CMopBpOfv_E?t=52
Family Guy Stewie and Brian Cool Whip

YouTube
Show threadLog ๐ŸชตFeb 25
@PizzaDemon @joyce HWhil HWheaton eating Cool HWhip.
Show threadChristopher BurtonFeb 25
@PizzaDemon @joyce I was going to share this, but you beat me to it, so I boosted it instead. #coolwhip
Show threadSemitonesFeb 27
@PizzaDemon @joyce Why am I saying hwhat hweird? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WbS-gPJtbTs
Hot Rod - "Why I'm saying what, what way?" ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚

YouTube
Show threadUkeleleEricFeb 25
@joyce not usually. Maybe in formal speech or when I need to make certain distinctions. Would have been the way that formal teachers would have taught it when I was young (but I am now 60).
Show thread8Petros [Free Radical]Feb 25
@joyce W(h)at.
Show threadStoneBear Feb 25
@joyce one wonders if there is a difference between accents... Americanese vs. English vs. Scotland vs. India... there definitely is a difference for _me_, but pronunciations can be radically different.... the common name for dihydrogen monoxide, f'rinstance... "Wot-uh" (something close to RP) vs. "WAtur" (generic American) vs. "wudder" (one of a few Brooklyn accents)...
Show threadNatalyaDFeb 25
@joyce Yes, caveated as sometimes. My mum is Glaswegian and that accent often pronounces wh differently from w and my accent has Glaswegian traits (used to be more obvious when I was wee).
Show threadChookMother ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿฆ˜Feb 25
@joyce For " weather" and " whether" I do something different with my tongue. Don't know whether it makes a difference to the sound. For "what?" I puff more air out between my lips than I would for " well" but again, it may not be an audible difference.
I'm Australian, more specifically from Adelaide. There are distinct differences in pronunciation in different parts of Australia.
Show threadspstanleyFeb 25
@joyce @puppethead I only pronounce them differently for whimsical weasons.
Show threadKevin P. FlemingFeb 25
@spstanley @joyce @puppethead Are you Stewie Griffin?
Show threadandycFeb 25
@joyce See also the American pronunciation of 'Vehicle' (where they use two syllables and pronounce the 'H'). Weird.
Show threadDoug Baker - Elbows Up! ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆMar 1
@andyc @joyce ๐Ÿ‘Vee-HICK-ul, amirite?
Show thread(Matthew)=> ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐ŸŽฎ๐Ÿ’ป๐Ÿ“–Feb 25
@joyce No but every time I try say "cool whip" my entire body involuntarily says "cool gwhip" but I think that's from watching Family Guy as a youth
Show threadTyla (Combat Waifu Yuri Arc)Feb 25
@joyce @D_J_Nathanson I voted no but many in my family do, and got upset when I didnโ€™t. Thereโ€™s a whole story there about race and code switching and such.
Show threadDave NathansonFeb 25

@FinalGirl @joyce Really? I never noticed it as associated with race, but I wasn't looking for it either.

My initial reaction when I hear the H-W pronunciation is that the person is being precious, effete.

Whenever this comes up, I can't help thinking of Lynda Carter commercial for Moisture HWip. It drove me nuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ3mjTe29Ic

Lynda Carter , Moisture Whip commercial 1981

YouTube
Show threadjensilberFeb 25
@joyce Not when speaking, but I'm a singer, and singers are often instructed to pronounce a "wh" at the start of a word as "hw" instead.
Show threadJoyce LionaronsFeb 25

@jensilber

Yes, that's the spoken difference as well, although it's usually very slight.

Show threadvulgalour - Free Range QueerFeb 25
@joyce Yes... but it's less to do with the sound and more to do with the speed of the word. I would say which slower than witch, and whether slower than weather, and that shifts the emphasis just enough.
Show threadanthropomorphic blast radiusFeb 25
@joyce British GenX with Yes ๐Ÿซฃ๐Ÿ˜
Show threadC.S.StrowbridgeFeb 25

@joyce

I voted yes, but it is so subtle that I doubt most people would notice.

Show threadLog ๐ŸชตFeb 25
@joyce Usually no, but will pronounce it with intent for comedic effect--such as the insincere query of "hwรฆt?!" for something obvious and normal to a modern person.
Show threadDoug Baker - Elbows Up! ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆFeb 25
@joyce My old dad always put an 'h" in words like "whale".