To Zarafa about ''wh'' words.

<<Pardon me for going off on a tangent, but I have a question for people who don't say "where," "when," "what" and "whale" with a "hw." Do you also say "whirl" like "wirl?" I am a hw-er, but I can pronounce all the words I cited with a plain "w" and not think it feels strange. But saying "wirl" feels very unnatural. I think there's something about the "hw" sound that sounds right for what "whirl" means.>>

Zarafa,

I pronounce words like ''where'', ''when'', ''what'' and ''whale'' with a /W/ sound as well as ''whirl''. I don't think pronouncing any of these words with a /w/ sound sounds strange including ''whirl''. It only sounds different. I don't know why ''whirl'' would sound any different that way, than the other words.

Anyway, here's my pronunciation for the following words:

where - /Wer/

when - /WEn/

what - /WQt/

whale - /We5/

whirl - /W3`.@5/

whirled - /W3`.@5d/

world - /w3`.@5d/

Carl - /kAr.@5/

Carroll - /k{r.@5/

Don, thanks again for your answer.

zarafa, I don't have "hw" in my speech (whether it be /hw/ or /W/ phonetically), so it doesn't sound weird for "whirl" not to have it. Did you say you were from San Francisco? If you grew up there I'd be surprised that you had /hw/ or /W/ for the "wh" words--or was it maybe a learned acquisition?

I myself do not natively have an /W/ (and I know the learned /W/ I have today is not native, because I remember as I little kid wondering what the point of spelling words with "wh" (versus "w") was), but I do hear people in local media content at times speaking with an /W/, and have learned individuals around here at times in "Real Life", especially older individuals, also speaking with such (my parents lack such, though, even though they do have some other conservativisms, such as active systematic use of "whom", and pronouncing "our" as /aUr/ --> [aU@`] rather than as /Ar/ --> [A:r\]).

That's interesting because in learned usage here it's nonexistent. My grandpa and grandma who were born in Canada (in the 1910s, so that was awhile ago) had some /hw/, but my mom said even their /hw/ was a learned acquisition, which explains why /w/ was normal for them in everyday speech.

What's "learned acquisition"? I picked up "hw" from my parents. My mother lived in Texas until she was 10 and then moved to Los Angeles. My father was from Ohio.

Interestingly, my brother is older than I am, but he's mostly dropped "hw" while I haven't.

zarafa, that means a feature of what's one's first language that one did not actually have originally in one's native dialect, but which one only picked up later in life (such as in school or like). Examples in my case are the use of /W/ and the productive use (that is, outside of fixed expressions) of "whom", neither of which I originally had, and neither of which I normally use tooday in everyday speech (except for effect) either. (For example, I remember for the longest time not having exactly the clearest idea of how "whom" is formally "supposed" to be used, and only later figuring out that "who" is formally nominative case and "whom" is formally accusative case.)

Thanks, Travis.

Kirk, my "hw" wasn't learned acquisition, since I grew up with it. I can remember lots of people around me using it when I was a kid. I'm 54.

I don't have /W/. It's pretty uncommon here in New England, even among older people.

As for "our", I always pronounce it /Ar/.

I learned the "who" versus "whom" distinction, although I only use "whom" in formal speech.

Another distinction that I have learned is "raise" versus "rise". I used to never know where to use one or the other, but eventually I got it right. My trick for remembering the distinction is the vowel: "raise" (transitive)has /e/ and "rise" (intransitive) has /aI/, just like "lay" (transitive) has /e/ and "lie" (intransitive) has /aI/.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Others ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor BUMP!

Houston, we have a bump.