spelling trivia of the day

[ursula]

The sound which one makes when one wishes a horse to stop, and, by extension, when one is surprised and wishes one's interlocutor to pause in conversation, is, in standard English, spelled "Whoa." Those with archaic sensibilities may prefer "Woa" or even "Wo." However, "Woah" is not standard and appears in the OED only as an example of usage (in 1856) under the heading "Woa."

Comments

usage in real life correction

[nobu.livejournal.com]

you may be interested to know that many horse people don't use Whoa. it sounds too much like Walk and can confuse horses. (not all are terribly bright you know).
I was taught (as I know lots of others are as well) to say Ho, with a very distinctive H sound and no W. :P
that is your little bit of odd return trivia :)

Re: usage in real life correction

[ursula]

Actually, a lot of the examples in the OED involve things like "Whoa-Ho-Ho!"