I wonder - does the OP’s (2011 model) boyfriend put an “R” into the word “wash”?
My kid sister picked up that bit of “Quaint” speech in Southern IN (she was 8 when the family moved. I was 12 and had the correct version encoded).
OP here; 2011 model boyfriend is now 2016 model husband. He doesn’t say “warsh.” If he did, he might have become 2011 model former boyfriend.
No one in Texas where I grew up. Perhaps more importantly, I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s place in Tennessee’s neighbor Arkansas and never heard it there either. I’ve never heard it anywhere, this is the first time.
Davanita, thank you for the information. It was quite informative and helpful. That’s exactly what we need in these parts, so I hope you stick around. Welcome to the boards!
The German W is pronounced more like English V, though, so why didn’t it become Vesper or suchlike?
SE Missouri & NE Arkansas checking in. Most everyone here knows what a wasper is!
Southern WV, yeah - I’ve heard ‘Wasper’. Though not since moving to Northern WV.
Just to clarify, my grandmother was in NW Arkansas, away from Tennessee. Sounds like Tennessee is Ground Zero for the wasper movement.
I’ve since heard my dad use it. He seems to use older terms as he gets older.
And I am in NW Arkansas.
I was born in West Tennessee and have heard Wasper all my life. I’m 30 years old for reference.
I used to hear “waspers” fairly often when I was a kid back in West Virginia, but I haven’t heard that word used in many years. It was a country, old-folks sort of word back then even, and it only referred to the kind of wasps or hornets that build little paper honeycomb nests in places like old barns and outbuildings; the other common wasp kind of varmints were called “dirt daubers” because they’d literally build their nests out of dried mud. As I said at first, though, that was many years back and many miles away. In fact I’d forgotten ever hearing the words “waspers” and “dirt daubers” until I saw the title of this thread!
I’m from WV. And Wasper is pretty much all I’ve ever heard them called. I moved to Northern part of West Virginia, everyone up here calls them Wadps. So if I’m with my family in the Southern part of the state I say wasper Northern part Wasp.
I lived in rural Tennessee my whole life. I never knew it wasn’t actually called a wasper until I met my husband. He is from Pennsylvania
Didn’t anyone who called it a “wasper” ever try to look it up in a dictionary?
Speech is learned from the things you hear. If you’ve never heard it called anything else, it wouldn’t occur to you that’s it’s wrong and you should look it up.