I’ve heard it on The Sopranos, I’ve heard it from Borscht Belt comedians, and I’ve heard it from New Yorkers and Long Islanders that I’ve known.
Hoo-wah. It’s how many folks in the Tri-State region apparently pronounce the word whore.
I know that many Noo Yawkers have a distinctive accent, but hoo-wah? I’ve never heard anyone say “stoo-wah” for store, “foo-wah” for four, “moo-wah” for more or “coo-wah” for core. Why “hoo-wah,” though?
You haven’t heard many New Yorkers, have you? That’s precisely how they would pronounce those words.
Well, you haven’t been around many New Yorkers if you haven’t heard any of those other pronunciations. The who-ah is a bit of an exageration, but how do you imagine New Yorkers pronounce:
store (staw-ah)
more (maw-ah)
four (faw-ah)
it’s kind of a cross between the aw/oo sounds.
I’ve heard a little bit of the Noo Yawk accent with a word like “store” from my downstate friends – it’s sometimes broken up into two syllables – but it certainly isn’t as pronounced as when they say the word “whore.”
Having spent time in NYC, IMO whore is pronounced as above. This is not precisely only because of the NYC accent. For example, bore & core should rhyme w/ whore, but are pronounced baw-uh, caw-uh, not quite like hoo-wah. So I think there is a difference- whore has some “extra” NY accent. Difficult to spell out the distinctions.
Even outside New York, some speakers give the vowel in “whore” an “oo” sound. Example: in Leonard Cohen’s song “Is This What You Wanted,” he clearly pronounces the word “hoor.”
By “oo” do you mean the “oo” as in look or as in coop?
More the latter, I think.
Does it derive from the Irish immigrants way back? I ask this b/c Eire/N.I./(G.B.) are the only other place I’ve heard both this pronunciation and the Brooklyn/N.J./Queens “What will yez/youse be having?”
People, I suspect you are overthinking this.
When I first encountered the word, growing up on the rough and tumble streets of Brooklyn, NY, USA, it was in fact pronounced hoo-uh. I heard if from little kids who no doubt heard it from their big brothers who heard it from their blue collar dads who heard it from their blue collar dads. Nobody in the chain was exactly an Oxford linguist, if you get my drift.
Now, with that context in mind, imagine you are a recently-arrived immigrant (or child of one) at the turn of the century encountering this strange English word for the first time. What do you see?
Okay, you recognize the first three letters: w-h-o. According to what Sister Rosalie taught you, they are pronounced “hoo.” That part is solved.
Then there’s this: r-e. Hmmm… must be “ruh.”
So the word is “hoo-ruh.” Doesn’t trip off the tongue, but that must be the word. (And remember, you’re on your own here – this is not exactly one of Sister Rosalie’s assigned vocabulary words, so no one who knows better is going to set you straight the first time, nor can you ask them.)
Now, take your mispronounced word and pass it down through about four generations of lazy-tongued speakers in various (mostly Italian) accents and you’ll end up smoothing off all the rough edges, resulting in:
“Hoo-uh.”
We’re overthinking this? Did you read your post…?
I kaynt buhleev yooz guise kaynt prunowns whores.
My WAG is due to the amount of Irish ex-pats.
Hoor is how it is pronounced by many people (moreso in the country) in Ireland. e.g. “He was a right cute hoor”.
As a kid growing up in the Bronx, I knew that slutty girls were called “HOO-ers.”
It was quite a revelation in junior high when one of my friends told me that the word was used in the Bible. I never had realized that “hoo-er” was actually spelled “whore.”
I agree that, although the NY pronunciation of “store” etc is similar, “whore” is more extreme and more distinctly two-syllabled.
That’s the way Augustus McCrae pronounced it in Lonesome Dove and he was supposed to be from Texas.
This reminds me of an old knock knock joke way when I was in grammar school.
Step one: Tell the person they have to speak with an Italian accent (i.e. add an “a” to the end of words).
You: Knock Knock
Them: Who’sa therea
You: Me
Them: mea whoa
Laughter ensued.
Point taken, John.
[Smilie here.]
If you want to talk like a New Yawk hoo-wah, simply pretend that your upper lip is entirely paralyzed, and you have limited movement with your lower lip. (Key gesture - stick your chin forward often.)
Viola! You to can play “types” on TV.
If you want to fake a French accent, simply pucker at least your lower lip on every syllable. (Key gesture - keep changing your gaze from the listeners right eye to their left.)
If you want to sound like a garden variety Asian, make sure your tongue touches the roof of your mouth with every syllable. (Key gesture - nod often)
If you want to sound like whatever euphemism for “ghetto” scriptwriters are using these days, put a small piece of hard candy in your mouth. (Key gesture - have an elderly sound technician teach you the latest gang sign pastiche.)
Yes, the New York whore is similar to these.
It’s more of the ‘haw’…with the more exagerrated examples being ‘haw-ah’, with a ‘hawa’ in the middle somewhere.
‘Haw’ = almost typical abberation of the ‘or’ sound. (typical of region)
‘Hawa’= same as above with a little breath at the end
‘Haw-ah’ = exagerrated breath at the end - most urban sound
stuyguy, your theory depends on people looking at the word in print and trying to pronounce it letter for letter. However, the blue collar immigrants you describe are much less likely to have seen the word “whore” in print than to have heard it. Keep in mind it means the same thing in Ireland and Britain, and has for hundreds of years, as it does here.