Answer: "whoa" or "woah"?

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Reader carodee wanted to know: Which is the correct spelling: whoa or woah?

I was pretty firmly in the camp of whoa when I got this question. My New Oxford American Dictionary doesn't list woah at all, and under whoa it says:

used as a command to a horse to make it stop or slow down
[informal] used as a greeting, to express surprise or interest, or to command attention

And the Corpus of Historical American English—which tracks language usage through magazines, newspapers, and fiction and nonfiction books—lists 911 uses of whoa in published sources versus ten of woah.

Seems pretty conclusive, right? Well, it wouldn't be a post if that was the end of the story. Let's look at the evolution of uses of whoa via examples from Warner Brothers cartoons, Pulp Fiction, Iron Man 2, The Incredibles, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Finding Nemo.

The most literal use of whoa is to stop or slow a horse, or in the following case, a camel.

Yosemite Sam: When ah say, "Whoa!" ah mean "Whoa!"
—Sahara Hare

(Note to writers who have serious riders as characters: Most horses are actually trained to stop at the command "Ho!")

Of course whoa can also be used figuratively, in any case where you want someone to slow down or stop.

Vincent: Lance! It's Vincent. I'm in big fuckin' trouble, man. I'm coming to your house.
Lance: Whoa. Whoa. Hold your horses, man. What's the problem?
—Pulp Fiction

From there, whoa can involve any situation in which the speaker wants the conversation to slow or stop so that the unbelievableness of what is happening can be taken in.

Nick Fury: Whoa, whoa, whoa. He took it? You're Iron Man and he just took it? The little brother walked in there, kicked your ass and took your suit? Is that possible?
—Iron Man 2

And that is a close cousin to a general "Wow!"

Helen: He put a tack on the teacher's chair. *During* class.
Dash: Nobody saw me. You could barely see it on the tape.
Bob: They caught you on tape and you still got away with it? Whoa! You must have been booking! How fast do you think you were going?
—The Incredibles

And the film that made whoa famous as an all-purpose stoner/surfer/Southern California-ism:

Ted1: OK wait. If you guys are really us, what number are we thinking of?
Bill2, Ted2: 69, dudes.
Bill1, Ted1: Whoa.
—Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted types are delightfully parodied by the sleepy-voiced turtle in Finding Nemo:

Crush: Saw the whole thing, dude. First you were all like "whoa", and we were like "whoa", and you were like "whoa…."

The rise of the alternate spelling woah seems to go along with its use in the "wow" sense, probably helped along by Keanu Reeves' pronunciation of the word, which sounds more "woe" than "whoa." (It has also increased because of the greater number of people posting on the internet without copyeditors to correct their spelling.) But as far as American dictionaries are concerned, whoa is the only official version. Using woah would be something to insert sparingly into fiction dialogue or tight POV narrative, if you were intentionally making a statement about a Bill/Ted/Crush-like character's accent.

But it turns out there's a British English versus American English aspect to this question, too.

Merriam-Webster's word.com newsletter seems to indicate that the usage of woah is growing in a direction that might someday lead to it being recognized as a legitimate variant. A linked article cites the Oxford English Dictionary's history of whoa as:

who c.1450-1859
wo 1787-1894
woa 1840-1892
woah 1856 (one example—included under the headword woa)
whoa 1843-1898 (but, of course, we know it's still used)

So woah does have a legitimate history as an anachronistic variant of a variant. (Although whoa, oddly, also appears to be anachronistic, as noted by the article author.) More contemporarily, the author notes increased sightings of woah in British advertisements, newspapers, and websites. So despite the Keanu effect, it may be British dictionaries that recognize woah first!


What is a writer to do? The dictionaries haven't changed yet.

• If you are writing about horses and riders, or other literal or closely figurative "stop!" situations, use whoa.


• If you are writing nonfiction, or a character with a formal voice, use whoa.


• If you are writing a "wow" situation and want to portray an American stoner or surfer type of character or an informal British character, you might consider using woah.

Comments

[barbarianwinter.livejournal.com]

Most horses are actually trained to stop at the command "Ho!"

Really? Where, what disciplines? Because I rode for like five years (in the US, east coast, mainly English pleasure/jumper) and I've never even heard of a horse being trained to stop on "Ho!"
Or on any word, really; people said "Whoa" and "Ho" sometimes but that usually wasn't what stopped the horse.

But then I was mainly around school horses, lower level show horses, and privately owned noncompetitive mounts. So maybe that's not what you mean by "serious"?

I'm not saying you're wrong or lying or anything...but I don't think "most" horses, worldwide at all levels and disciplines are trained to stop on one word. I feel like I would have heard of it at some point, all the horse people/books/magazines I was around/reading, if "most" was the cast.

(ETA: Unless you meant "for most modern horses who are trained to stop on command the word is usually "Ho" not "Whoa" which I can't really speak to, not having been around a lot of horses that highly trained. And can't say I'd love fanfic writers getting the idea most horses are trained to stop on command, considering how much bad horsey info there already is in fanfic. That's kinda what it looked like you were saying; sorry if I missed something.)

Anyway, great post--something I've wondered about for a while.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Apologies, I worded it poorly. If I were to re-word it: Most horses are not trained to stop solely on a verbal command; they are trained to stop by being reined in, usually also with a deepened seat. However when these physical cues are accompanied by a verbal command, non-riders assume the word is "whoa" although most actual riders use "ho."

(I also rode English pleasure/jumper school horses, although on the west coast of the US, and it was always "ho." As I was researching this article I found several other references to "ho" being the word used in equestrian practice, and I haven't actually heard "whoa" outside of a cowboy movie or dude ranch Western trail ride. But thank you for sharing your experience--"whoa" seems to be more in use than I thought.)

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Dude, this is awesum LEIK WOAH.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Seriously, dude, like, no WAY!

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

Great post. :-)

Though personally, I have a dreadful time with this because all of my various riding teachers taught me to say whoa and pronounced it "ho."

That's so ingrained that I feel compelled to use the "woah" spelling for casual/slang dialog.

Rigid and set in my ways? Who, me? *wry grin*

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you want it to sound all "W"-y, then "woah" gets that across. :-)