The pronunciation of what? Exactly.

[thnidu]

Gene Weingarten wrote in yesterday's Washington Post:
I am a "word person." My vocabulary is extensive, my command of grammar and syntax almost without error. I can accurately conjugate most any verb, including "to lie," which gets pretty complex in the pluperfect. I understand the difference between epistemology and hermeneutics.

And so it came as

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I pronounce "what" to rhyme approximately with "gut," but not quite; thinking about it, I find that my pronunciation of the vowel is very close to the modern Greek short "a." Maybe that's part of my personal accent, which always bewilders people.

[keristor]

In standard British English 'what' rhymes almost exactly with 'got' (and, yes, with 'squat'). Some accents have a leading aspirate on the 'w' ('hwot', which if I remember correctly is one of the older English spellings), some aspirate the 'w' itself (which I find difficult) and many omit the aspirate completely ('wot' just like 'got'). I don't know any English native who pronounces it like 'gut'.

I go both ways...

[hvideo]

My pronunciation varies. Usually I will pronounce "what" to rhyme with "gut", but in some circumstances I will rhyme it with "squat". I think it is the emphasis on the word that tends to bring out the "watt" version. I have both a quiet, puzzled "Say wut?" and a loud, outraged "Say watt?!?"

[majikjon]

It is the nature of a language to change. English has undergone countless shifts in pronounciation over the centuries. (Especially our use of Diphthongs, which was one of the primary shifts from the middle English of Chaucer to the more modern English of Shakespeare.)

The accepted American pronounciation equates "What" with "Gut", simplifying the diphthong sound into a simple schwa sound. The British still elongate the vowel, and rhyme it with squat. Who's right? Who was right 100 years ago? Who will be right 100 years from now? Who can say?

[annonynous]

Well, not the first listed pronunciation, anyway. My Random House dictionary (1966 - '67, so this isn't a recent degradation / innovation) lists six pronunciations - hwut, hwot, wut, wot; unstressed hw*t, w*t (where * is an upside down, backwards e, the name of which I'm not remembering).

There should be a joke somewhere here, based on that Abbott & Costello baseball routine, but I'm not coming up with it either. :(

Ann O.

[panthyrr]

Schwah?

I think?

[annonynous]

Yep, that would seem to be it. It's a transliteration from the Hebrew, so the spelling (terminal h) may be variable.

Thanks!

Who?

[majikjon]

Here's may favorite spoof of Who's on First, courtesy of Kids in the Hall