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In a previous question I wrote Credo che pressocché dovunque le persone parlino ..., but it was changed to Credo che pressocché ovunque le persone parlino ..., replacing dovunque with ovunque.
Can anyone explain the reason why one should prefer ovunque over dovunque in that case?
After consulting some dictionaries, I'm still unsure about what the difference is.
They are interchangeable, as they have exactly the same meaning.
However, since one starts with a vowel and one with a consonant, the usage of one of the two can be preferable in the way they sound.
Credo che pressocché dovunque le persone parlino ...
is completely fine and I wouldn't have bothered in correcting it. However I agree that
Credo che pressocché ovunque le persone parlino ...
pleases my ear a little better, since losing the consonant makes the whole sentence flow more smoothly.
That being said, I think ovunque is less common in the spoken language than dovunque and it is also a little bit more highbrow.
They are interchangeable, as ovunque means dovunque. They are like tra and fra: Although they are synonyms, you generally avoid some word combinations, such as fra frati and tra travi.
As for using pressoché dovunque or pressoché ovunque, Google NGrams shows the latter is used more often.
Furthermore, looking for pressocché dovunque versus pressocché ovunque, I get the following. (There are two c after presso.)
