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Dear colleagues, Thanks to all of you (and to those who have written to us personally) for your stimulating suggestions as to why discourse marker _well_ might have been spelt _will _in Harold Jarvis' letter. On such slender evidence we can't conclude that any particular pronunciation is intended. However, it does appear that the functional distinction between _well _adverb and _well_ DM is relevant. If the DM was sometimes lengthened, as Aidan says, the writer may not have associated it with well adverb. Moreover, he may not have been familiar with the discourse marker in its written form. As regards l-vocalisation, it is unclear exactly what effect it would have had on the preceding vowel. It would be interesting if any other examples of the spelling of _well _DM turned up. In summary, we think that it was probably the difference length of the DM that triggered the non-standard spelling. What seems clear is that there is a dissociation between the two _wells. _ We attach a photograph of the letter in case anyone is interested. Best wishes and many thanks again for your contributions, Julia and Christopher -- Dr. Julia Fernández Cuesta Associate Professor Universidad de Sevilla Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa) C/ Palos de la Frontera s/n Sevilla 41004 Spain Tel.: +34 954 55 15 45 Fax: +34 954 55 15 16 E-mail: [log in to unmask] ######################################################################## The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics. To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1