' wa '



And now these:



























    Well, now I'm befuddled.



  8. Marmaduke de PlegeFriday, April 15, 2011

    the word 'one'

    the 'o'sounds like 'wa'

    does any other word use 'o' in this way?

  9. (I'm back!)



    If an r or l follows, it is THOUGHT.

    Otherwise it is LOT.




    wallaby, wattle and waratah to make this list visual.


    List two - wh words, when, wheel, where etc









    1. Have you noticed Johanna that the same pattern applies to "qu"? It seems to be the sound /w/ that causes the change. For example, quad, squash, squat, quaff, quantity. If the pattern is sound based, "what" "swan" and "quad" all fit exactly into the pattern.
      Also, if we describe the pattern as the /w/ sound converting the letter "a" after it into a letter "o", the words like "warn" fit the same pattern. That is, "warn" becomes /w/ /or/ /n/ and "dwarf" becomes /d/ /w/ /or/ /f/.
      Of the words you mentioned, this pattern does not apply to "walk" and "wall", but I see them as controlled by another pattern that controls "talk", "stalk", "chalk", "call", "mall", "hall" "ball", "squall"
      What do you think? Judith

  17. Late entry to this discussion. I'm Australian but our pronunciation is much closer to English than to US.
    I see the single pattern (rule) as: LETTER 'a' after SOUND /w/ is pronounced as if it were LETTER 'o'. Hence 'wand' -> /w o n d/ and 'quad' -> /k w o d/ and 'what' -> /w o t/.
    The digraph 'ar' becomes 'or'; hence 'ward' -> /w or d/. This is the same rule.

    This rule yields precedence to stronger rules: eg 1 vowel digraphs like 'ai' 'a?e' 'ay', 'aw' ; so we have 'wait', 'wave',' way', 'quaint' 'squawk' eg 2 Irregular pasts like 'swam'

    The rule does not apply before sounds /k/ and /g/; hence 'wacky', 'wag', 'wax', 'quack'.

    The rule has not been applied to new imports to the English: wonton, wham, wobble (was wabble until 1850), quark

    So there you have it 'a' becomes 'o' after /w/ sound. My list includes over 50 common words (+ more if you count plurals and tenses etc.

    And a second rule is like it: letter 'o' after sound /w/ acts like letter 'u'; hence 'won' -> 'w u n', 'work' -> 'w ur k' and so on.