Where in Ireland, if anywhere, at the time of James Joyce, would “hoe” and “whore” sound similar enough to pun?

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Where in Ireland, if anywhere, at the time of James Joyce (1882 – 1941), would “hoe” and “whore” sound similar enough to pun?

This question pertains to Does Joyce, in Finnegans Wake or Ulysses, link the sound form “hoe” to “whore”? from our sister site for Literature.

The first issue is rhoticity. While most of the English world is non-rhotic, according to Rhoticity in English – Ireland

The prestige form of English spoken in Ireland is rhotic and most
regional accents are rhotic although some regional accents,
particularly in the area around counties Louth and Cavan are notably
non-rhotic and many non-prestige accents have touches of
non-rhoticity. In Dublin, the traditional local dialect is largely
non-rhotic,
but the more modern varieties, referred to by Hickey as “mainstream
Dublin English” and “fashionable Dublin English”, are fully rhotic.

The Dublin non-rhoticity is why Joyce could successfully pun “haw” and “whore” in Ulysses. He heard the pun in real life (and of course all the non-rhotic English world would potentially get it).

But a “hoe”-“hoer”-“whore” pun requires non-rhoticity and a coincidence of vowel form pronunciations. That such a coincidence might occur somewhere in Ireland is suggested by my lay reading of Wikipedia’s Hiberno-English: Overview of pronunciation and phonology.

The modern day US “ho”-“whore” can only be traced back only to the sixties.

Answer

  • Though the generic Irish-English accent is rhotic (pronounces all ‘r’s), Supposedly, the accent in Dublin, where Joyce was born and raised, is (or was at that time?) non-rhotic. In that case, ‘hoe’ /hoʊ̯/ or /ho:/ and ‘whore’ /hoːɹ/ or /ho:/, are pretty close.

  • Joyce, being well-educated, might have been explicitly writing for a more general British audience which would more likely be non-rhotic. (this is pure speculation).

  • Puns don’t have to be exact matches to invoke comparison. Witness all the horrible knock-knock jokes where the name standing a lone gets twisted into something nearby simply to make a tenuous connection for a 6 year old:

    Knock knock.

    Who’s there?

    Mustache.

    Mustache who?

    I mustache you a question, but I’ll shave it for later.

    This is only to address the issue that Joyce could be writing with an entirely rhotic ear and still be trying to make puns. I mean, it’d be easier to point out the few places where there’s not a pun.

  • disclaimer: I don’t have much familiarity with Irish accents. I’m passing on information I’ve gathered from elsewhere.

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : fundagain , Answer Author : Mitch

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