957: Whore and Ho Jul 23, 2017

The word 'whore' has been around for over a thousand years at least, while 'ho' is somewhat newer. 'Ho' was not commonly recognized in dictionaries until the 1960's, but people have been using it for centuries; it's estimated that people used 'ho' more than twice as often in the 1860's as they do now. Much like English has two distinct forms for 'curse' and 'cuss', as well as 'arse' and 'ass' which mean the same things but belong to different dialects, 'whore' and 'ho' originally differed based on the accent of the people saying the word, depending on whether the R's are rhotic or not. Now, as 'ho' is considered a slang term that's separate from 'whore', it is used by people who speak Standard American English who would otherwise ordinarily say 'whore; oppositely, speakers of Received Pronunciation in Southern England may say 'whore' with a rhotic R. In America, the term 'ho' is often associated with African American English, and this is because that dialects also uses a non-rhotic R.