Re: Fr/lat/ru tu-vous/tu-vos/ - : etymology ?

"John Atkinson" <johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This is common in eye-dialect -- like <was> being spelled <woz> to indicate a speaker of non-standard English, even though <was> and <woz> are pronounced exactly the same in all varieties of English.

Wouldn't <was> have the same vowel as <wasp> when the letter's vowel wasn't lengthened? Inconveniently for providing a counter-example, the one dialect I am acquainted with that rhymes <wasp> and <clasp> is somewhat lacking in <was>.

However, has anyone ever seen <woz> used to indicate an intrusion of Standard English into dialect speech?

Richard.

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