Joe in Huntsville, Alabama, says an elderly friend consistently says hope to mean help. For more than a century, some speakers in parts of the Southern United States drop the L sound before another consonant in words, which then affects the adjacent vowel. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Help Pronounced as “Hope””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Okay, this is Joe Dooley. I’m on the outskirts of Huntsville, Alabama. What can we do for you today?
I have a question about a terminology that I have heard quite often from one individual. He never says help. He always says hope. Somewhat confusing. He will say, I’m going down to hope someone was changing their tire. I’m going to hope them do this. And he’s meaning help. Just wondered where this came from.
That’s a fantastic question. Is he also from Alabama?
Yes, he is.
Okay, good. And about what age group would you say he is?
In his 90s.
Oh, it was 90s. Okay, good. There is a strong history in the American South, particularly in the Gulf states, of saying hope instead of help. So it sounds like H-O-P-E, but they’re really saying H-E-L-P. And the explanation is a little complicated, but I’ll do my best.
One of the things that happens in part of the American South is people drop their L’s in that word. So it sounds more like hep instead of help. The other thing that can happen is once that L has started to disappear or has disappeared completely, the middle vowel starts to change. That E starts to sound a little more like an O. And so then it sounds like hope. And it has happened consistently across large populations over more than a century. So it’s been chronicled by people who study language and put in dialect dictionaries and talked about in various linguistics texts and so forth. So it’s a well-known feature for a fairly large number of people in the American South.
Well, that’s very interesting. I don’t think this gentleman ever got to the Gulf Coast to spend any time there other than short vacations. But he’s from the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains.
That sounds about right. You’ll also sometimes hear, kind of even more confusingly, people who are saying the word helped, the past tense of help or to help, they’ll also say that as hope. And it’s a similar thing happening. But what’s happening first is that D at the end of H-E-L-P-E-D, that D starts to turn into a T and then it disappears. And then those other same changes take place with the L in the middle vowel. So it’s a long process over a long period of time. And these kinds of things spread because we tend to talk like our neighbors. We talk like the people that we live near and work with or related to, that we respect people like our parents or school teachers or bosses or good friends, that sort of thing.
Well, I’ve never noticed any other word that I considered him mispronouncing.
Well, just know that he is a part of a long tradition of folks who say that word that way. And it can be explained, and he’s not alone.
Okay. I certainly appreciate your explanation. Very interesting. Thank you very much for your call. We appreciate your time. Glad to help.
Yes, thank you very much. Take care.
All righty. Bye-bye, Joe.
Bye.
Bye.
