> > To me, the pronunciation of "wh" words as "hw" evokes dreadful upper-class and middle-class-pretending-to-be-upper-class Pommie pretentiousness. OK, it's not pretentious if you genuinely do speak that way, but that's the way it always sounds to me. Sorry.
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> Whoa, you really find that so, B-G??? At first I couldn't grasp what Issachar was getting at, what with the 'wh' sounding like 'hw'; but careful enunciation of words like "while" and "which" has convinced me that an understated, lingual 'h' sound does indeed seem to be aspirated *before* the 'w' is pronounced

Yes, but it's very understated. Almost indistinguishable from plain old "w". At least it is around here. I only ever met one person who really pronounced that "h" (apart from Old English classes and stand-up comedians trying to sound like inbred single-brain-celled upper-class twits). And that person was, to be unkind about it, a genuine inbred single-brain-celled upper-class twit. ;-)

However, now that I know Issachar and others pronounce it that way, I've changed my views and will not consider it pretentious.

Brunnen-"If Issachar does something, it must be all right"G