Whoa or woah? Dictionary.com makes 'major' announcement on correct spelling of the word
Woah, it's not supposed to be spelled this way?
Dictionary.com, a top online source for English definitions, spellings, and word origins, has made it clear once and for all that the actual spelling of the expression used to convey surprise, interest, or alarm is "whoa" and not "woah."
"We have a major announcement," the online dictionary wrote in all caps on their official Twitter account. "It's spelled 'whoa,' not 'woah.'"
WE HAVE A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT.
It's spelled "whoa," not "woah."— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) December 15, 2022
The post, which has received more than 50,000 likes, seems to have garnered varied reactions from Twitter users.
"No one uses the 'h' in the beginning of saying woah though, they use it at the end so your spelling does not reflect the dictation of the spoken word. I do not accept," one user contradicted.
"Language is not set in stone and changes over time. If a large group of the human population is spelling something overtime then that becomes the way of spelling it," another one wrote.
In a follow-up tweet linking an article that explains this revelation, Dictionary.com stressed that whoa is "the original spelling," having already been used since at least the late 1400s.
The word was thought to be another version of the word "ho," which was uttered to command horses to stop, before it eventually became the go-to expression for surprise or excitement.
Whoa being spelled as woah only emerged recently during the early 1980s, when digital forms of communication had begun to slowly rise in popularity. Dictionary.com states that the earliest evidence of woah in writing is thought to come from online message boards.
Despite the distinction in the placement of the letter "h," there is really not much difference between the meaning conveyed by both versions of the word.
However, the online dictionary explained that woah may be used as the more informal version of the two, "Generally speaking, woah is more likely to appear in more informal contexts, such as social media posts, text messages, and memes, where nonstandard spellings and words are more common."
The next time that you're confused about which one to use, Dictionary.com advised to simply remember that it originated as a command for a horse to stop.
"In the word horse, the h is up front—a reminder that it has earlier placement in the original spelling whoa (as opposed to woah, where it comes at the end)," they wrote.