Talk:woah

seriously, it's "whoa"
this should be redirected to "whoa" and indicated as a common error
 * Merriam-Webster agrees. Kane2742 21:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not redirected, but unless this happens to be really common we can call it a misspelling, not an alternative form. Whoa is so informal that I'm not sure if misspelling is the best word for it. Ah well. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a misspelling, not an alternative spelling. "Alot" is not an alternative spelling of "a lot," "there" (possessive) is not an alternative spelling of "their," etc. 204.210.190.132 21:51, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok done. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:35, 27 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It says "alternative spelling." It's not one. It's a misspelling. Please fix! 204.210.190.132 01:35, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That was changed per the Tea Room. It's an alternative spelling as common as other words. Meemo16 (talk) 07:32, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Removed from "misspelling" category, rationale:
While "woah" is certainly proscribed against and it's a disputed spelling, it's not a "misspelling" as such. To give a quick feeling for what a "misspelling" means in contrast to other categories, one quick look at the "English misspellings" category gives spellings like "aquifiers", "Amercia", and "artic". I think it's clear that while there is definitely an opposition to "woah", the use of "woah" is not based on incorrectly mapping the word to the letters that make it up, but simple variation, just like "lite", "transitionary", etc. 67.246.23.0 05:38, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

cmon people
you dont get to make up language. if people type "woah" then its "woah". i also dont see how it can be a "misspelling" because its very intended and consciously done. the "Removed from "misspelling" category, rationale:" guy also makes a good point
 * You know what else are misspellings? "cmon", "dont", "its" (in the meaning you are using it for). You are making an ad populum argument, which is by nature fallacious. Just because a large number of people make a mistake, doesn't make the mistake no longer erroneous. It is true that we are a descriptivist dictionary, but that doesn't mean that an obvious misspelling ought to be marked as legitimate when it is not. Tharthan (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
 * those arent "misspellings". like i said they are very intended and consciously done. if a large number of people make a mistake, yes it does make the mistake no longer erroneous. literally the english youre speaking right now is derived from "mistakes." language is always changing and being made, and stating otherwise would make you a prescriptivist. i am not making an "ad populum" argument, an ad populum argument goes by the belief of other people. i am only stating facts here. also there are no "legitimate" spellings or non legitimate spellings. everyone writes differently, there is no way to legitimately use such tools (orthography), thats not exactly how standardization works. youre being kinda ironic by pointing out that we are a descriptivist dictionary
 * I'm sorry, but if you are consciously misspelling words (because that is what you are doing), then you are not taking a plain descriptivist approach with language coverage, you are taking a very radical approach not widely accepted anywhere.
 * The thing is, fellow, the "mistakes" (as you call them) that led to Modern English have been categorised within a transitional period between Late Middle English to Early Modern English. The new English that was formed has (by now) been classified as a separate form of English: Modern English. Middle English and Modern English are considered separate, not the same. Whether you like it or not, Modern English has standards. And if a word/spelling is both proscribed and a misspelling, then it is not wise to use it, lest you appear foolish. Unlike you, I like to try to roughly follow standard English spellings (that doesn't mean that I don't have my variances) not only because I agree with the standard, but also because it accurately represents the vast majority of the forms of Modern English pretty well. Also, as a bonus, it has (somewhat of an) etymological spelling system. Amongst other things, that can help people who speak related languages in understanding English.
 * Radical descriptivism is just as bad as radical prescriptivism. Both are also largely unwanted. Tharthan (talk) 23:28, 9 February 2018 (UTC)


 * i dont remember stating that im consciously misspelling words. im only some dude casually chatting on the internet.

dont see the point youre making by claiming middle english and modern english are considered separate. also language never has "standards," it is always changing. the fact that a word/spelling being proscribed and misspelled doesnt matter, because it is anyways attested by wide use. youre calling out a lot of people on being foolish just because of their particular writing habits you dont like. and the fact that you agree with, follow, and promote the use of standard english makes you a pretty radical prescriptivist to me. also its pretty weird how you state that standard english represents the vast majority of modern english. 99% of english is dialectal or colloquial and consists of people who uses specific terms, spellings, and constructions that you wouldnt agree with. and descriptivism is not as bad as prescriptivism because usually the descriptivists are educated on actual linguistic theory.
 * With spoken language, I agree with you. I don't care for "standard" dialects of English, because they dismiss very many elements of dialectal speech (I especially detest it when the features being dismissed are actually more historically accurate, in a fashion).


 * With written language, however, I don't agree. It is important to have standards for written language, so as to facilitate mutual intelligibility between individuals.


 * I didn't mean to imply that standard English represents the vast majority of Modern English. I meant to imply that standard English spellings cover the vast majority of the forms of Modern English pretty well. The spelling system that English has allows word origins to often be discerned, sometimes allows for former pronunciations of a word to be discerned, can allow someone whose idiolect might really stick out to someone else and might bother them to be able to be communicated with comfortably through writing instead etc. Tharthan (talk) 22:51, 10 February 2018 (UTC)


 * then i dont see what gets you to think that "woah" is not standard enough even though it is widely written.

also, standard english spellings dont cover most of modern english any better than proscribed spellings do. ironically "woah" being standardized and more written than "whoa" would make woah even more "well covered" despite being proscribed. also i dont see what etymology has to do with what we're talking about here. and that last example makes no sense


 * Because the traditional spelling of the word is whoa [ʍoʊ], and it ultimately goes back to a variant of ho [hoʊ] (interjection), which is derived from Old Norse hó (interjection). The H being after the W (making it be thus pronounced with [ʍ] / /hw/) is relevant as such. Tharthan (talk) 19:39, 11 February 2018 (UTC)


 * and what about the word "wah-wah" which does not follow this pattern? and the word's etymology is irrelevant. and a words etymology doesnt choose its spelling anyway.


 * Well, wah-wah is of direct imitative origin, first attested in jazz slang, then attested later in imitation of the sound of a baby crying. It never had an H sound in its pronunciation, /wɑwɑ/ or /wæˈwæ/.
 * Many would beg to differ. After all, in English, April was originally averil/aueril [in Middle English] (which was in turn derived from Old French avrill) until it was (to be more etymologically accurate) re-Latinised to apprile and later in the more modern period fixed to April. Similar things occurred with June, January, lectern, August, debt, doubt and other words. Furthermore, the French language had extensively at one point changed the spellings of many of its words to be "etymologically accurate". Even the accent marks are sometimes used for this purpose. The circumflex, for instance, is used to mark a lost sound (S, usually). So, yes, in some cases etymology does indeed determine the spelling. Tharthan (talk) 01:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)


 * that is an example of people making up orthography based on its etymology.


 * Right, and there's nothing wrong with that. Basing the spelling of words on their etymologies is not some foreign concept, nor is it wrong. Some languages like to do that more than others and English and French are some languages which are more inclined to do so than not. Tharthan (talk) 13:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * languages do not do anything, it is the speakers who change them. if you mean orthography is changed by a few people, then that is also absurd. imagine trying to get millions of writers to write in a specific manner just because you like it. in such a case here orthography is changed by standardization, hence the woah spelling. trying to change the way people write is at best prescriptivism which is against linguistic thought.


 * I agree. Trying to change the way millions of people write is absurd. That's why I scoff at the Académie française and a number of their decisions, such as their recent actions to remove the circumflex from a large number of French words for little good reason (and incorporating that change into school textbooks). Thankfully, written English has been largely standardised for hundreds of years now, and it has loads upon loads of speakers, so there is no reason to haphazardly change the spellings of simple words such as whoa. Tharthan (talk) 17:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * but in this case the spelling "woah" was rather brought up naturally than decided/enforced by someone.


 * I don't know. How that developed is intriguing to me, because if one wished to indicate that they weren't pronouncing it with /ʍ/, they could have just spelt it as woa. There was no need for the final H. Tharthan (talk) 15:20, 18 February 2018 (UTC)


 * that point is weird. if we started spelling words based on phonetics english would look a lot different. Lead would be spelled as leed. Dessert as dezert. Bow as boe etc.


 * Right, but onomatopoeic words and their ilk (such as similar but interjectional terms which are based upon sounds) tend to be spelt phonetically; zoom, beep, bow-wow, buzz, eek, vroom, etc. Even though whoa is derived ultimately from Old Norse hó, it's still largely a natural interjection. Tharthan (talk) 20:16, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

"sometimes proscribed"
As it currently stands, the entry firmly proscribes "woah", by calling it a misspelling, yet simultaneously validates this spelling by calling it only "sometimes proscribed". This seems inconsistent to me. If "woah" is a misspelling, then it is proscribed by definition. JudahH (talk) 12:42, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's redundant. Most people haven't complained about that line's presence, though. Go ahead and remove it. I don't think that it would be contested much. Tharthan (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

not a misspelling
The 14 billion word iWeb corpus and Google Trends and Twitter hashtag counts all show that 'woah' is a more common spelling than 'whoa'. It may have been a misspelling 10 years ago, but it clearly isn't now. Wiktionary is a descriptive dictionary; we do not prescribe, especially if the external sources do not agree with each other, which in this case they absolutely do not. Also, calling 'woah' a misspelling while calling whoah an alternative spelling makes no sense. Calling 'woah' a misspelling would be like calling aoogah or ta-tah misspellings (which we don't – we call them alternative spellings).

For conflicting viewpoints, see:


 * This WSJ article
 * This podcast
 * Oxford's Lexico
 * This Mirror article

Dylanvt (talk) 21:31, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Was "yeah" an influence on this spelling?
Then again, people who write "woah" are probably the same ones who spell "yeah" as "yea" or "yer"... Equinox ◑ 01:14, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. But, to Dylanvt's point, you can find loads upon loads of instances of people using "yea" for "yeah" these days, much more so than years back.
 * I find the whole matter quite dumb, and just wish that people would spell things properly, but what can you do? Tharthan (talk) 12:22, 14 May 2020 (UTC)


 * You can't really standardise natural language. I'm sure spelling 500 years from now (if people still write and don't just ask questions of the big listening Google in the sky) would look quite wacky to us. Equinox ◑ 12:26, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Well of course one can't. But I would think that in the age of the Internet, there would be more of a call to sticking to usual spelling. I certainly wouldn't have expected that there would be more deviation than people had seen in quite a long time. And yet, more and more younger people seem to stink at spelling and do not do too much better as they get older. Tharthan (talk) 22:20, 14 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I doubt we will change each other's minds on this but I don't see our current correct spellings as timelessly perfect gems that we must emulate forever. They are just conveniences. In mediaeval times words were not spelled the way that we spell them now. We are just in the middle. A kid born in 2050, or 3050, or 4050, will have his/her own spellings: they are not better or worse. Language isn't its own magical thing. It's a tool that humans use. It will develop and change with the humans. If you think there is something about current 21st-century spellings (why not 18th or 19th or 22nd?) that makes them godly and immortal, why?! They're just words, they are tools for communicating, and we, humans, created them. We change and develop every other thing that we make &mdash; swords, axes, technology, political systems &mdash; and there's no reason to believe we won't change the words either. Equinox ◑ 00:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I never said that language was magic. What I do think, though, is that language is a legitimate element of culture that has its own merits beyond the utterly utilitarian. There are different schools of thought on this matter for sure, but I am of one that sees the artistic beauty, reflection of a culture, and essence of a people in a language.
 * One form of a language might bring to mind one thing, whereas another might bring to mind something quite different. Choice of language in art mediums is often used to add a particular characteristic (or particular characteristics) or flare to something or someone.
 * Many in pre-French Revolution France were disgusted with the France following the period when the Jacobins et al. had their way with France. Some of these same people even felt that some form of revolution was quite clearly a necessity, but were adamant that the kind that ended up occurring was no good. I see language as little different. I (and many other people) prefer some forms of a language over others. There are different reasons for this, but perhaps the most key one for me is what that particular form of that particular language embodies to me.
 * But perhaps our views on language are very different. Language has its primary application, of course, but that is hardly the end of it. Tharthan (talk) 02:14, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Elaboration on a minor change I tried to make to the usage note, which Tharthan took issue with
This note currently begins: woah (c. 1856) is commonly used, but has a history of being traditionally proscribed or considered an error. I deleted the word "traditionally" with the comment that it is redundant with "has a history of". Tharthan undid this change with the comment, "Nope. We're not softening the language on this any more than we already have."

With all due respect, Tharthan, that comment makes me think that you misunderstood the point of my edit. I see that you've debated other editors who took the stance that woah is not a misspelling. Perhaps those previous interactions conditioned you to automatically see changes to the usage note as attempts at "softening its language", but that was not my intention in the least. Like you, I regard woah as a misspelling, so I have no interest in softening the language on this point. My change was purely stylistic in nature; I explained it in my original comment, but I'll try to elaborate:

"woah has a history of being proscribed" and "woah has been traditionally proscribed" are two sentences that mean just about the same thing; to wit, that this spelling has been consistently proscribed for many years. Combining the two, as I see it, makes the language not more stronger but, at best, more redundant. To rephrase the sentence in a manner that brings out the redundancy: "For many years, woah has been proscribed for many years."

I'm open to discussion with you about what the best phrasing of this note would be (for instance, which of the two near-synonymous phrases ['a history of' or 'traditionally'] is better to keep if only one is kept, or whether there's some additional nuance you feel that the current wording conveys that would be lost with the deletion of either phrase), but I maintain that the current wording is severely infelicitous. Out of respect for you, I will wait for your reply instead of reinstating my original change. JudahH (talk) 02:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for going out of your way to explain the reason why you made your initial edit, JudahH. I appreciate it.
 * You are correct that the numerous editors that I have had to deal with over the years who have tried (and continue to try, every once in a while) to soften the phrasing used in this entry have led me to be very wary about any further changes to the entry.
 * I think that, given your concern, perhaps a change in wording from "woah (c. 1856) is commonly used, but has a history of being traditionally proscribed or considered an error", to "woah (c. 1856) is commonly used, but has a long tradition of being proscribed or considered an error" would be warranted.
 * What do you think? Tharthan (talk) 09:21, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
 * That would address my concern and I have no serious objection to it. However, I do have a minor objection to the way it uses the word "tradition", as to my mind, traditions belong to the people who do things, rather than to the objects to which to those things are done. For that reason, I would amend your suggestion to "...a long history of being proscribed or considered an error" (as objects do have histories, of course). Does that sound all right to you? JudahH (talk) 18:30, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm just not big on the phrasing "a long history" alone in this kind of situation. In this instance, that would read to me almost in a way that someone might misassume that "a lengthy pedantic debate" is to be read between the lines.
 * Is the word "tradition" a complete dealbreaker for you? Tharthan (talk) 20:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
 * No, not a dealbreaker, but if we're going to use it, I do think that woah should be cast as the object of the tradition. Would either "...has traditionally been regarded..." or "...is traditionally regarded..." work for you? (I realize that loses the word "long", but I think that "throughout its history" would be more or less implied, anyhow.) JudahH (talk) 20:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * "has been traditionally regarded" works fine, yes. Tharthan (talk) 21:08, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. When I went to make the change, I realized that I had misquoted the entry in using the word "regarded", so I decided to leave that alone and simply make the substantive change we had been talking about. JudahH (talk) 15:44, 20 October 2020 (UTC)