The correct spelling of the word is "Whoa."

Not "Woah."

As in, "Whoa, check it out. Those two squirrels are humping."

I have a problem with this. A huge problem. I am normally a stickler for the correct usage of commonly-misspelled words (a lot, not allot; anyway, not anyways), but whoa is where I draw the line. I want to lash out, to throw the force of my weight against the enormous pillar of wrong that is "whoa."

My problem is this:

You don't pronounce it whoa, you pronounce it woah.

People like me who read more than they speak are quick to form a mental disconnect between written word and spoken word. This is bad.

It's important to remember that language came first, then written language.

Written language, words and letters, are like phonetic musical notes. They are instructions for your mouth. You need to move your mouth to speak words, and the letters in each word are precise directions (often poorly) engineered to tell your mouth what to do. The reason every word must have a vowel isn't because rules are awesome, it's because vowels make you open your mouth and consonants make you close them. You can't speak a word without opening your mouth, thus the vowels.

The reason a word like "Frddrglrg" doesn't work isn't because it's silly, it's because you don't open your mouth. Because of no vowels. Get the connection?

With that in mind, let's look at the word Whoa.

When you say, "Whoa, this pasta is delicious," you probably pronounce it "wo-wuh." The trailing "uh" is usually either silent or almost inaudible, but it's an artifact of your lips relaxing after the "o" and there still being air coming out of your mouth.

If you were to pronounce Whoa the way it is spelled, it would sound something like "wo-ahh," rhyming with Boa (as in "bo-ahh constrictor"). You don't do that. Nobody does.

The spelling, for some reason, comes from the middle-English use of the word "whoo," as in "whoo and youu?" I have no idea how it came to become a command for horses to stop, but the important thing is that it is now much more than an equine directive.

Whoa is used by most people, Keanu Reeves among them, as a sort of verbal declaration of puzzlement. It is used in situations where "Duuude" does not apply.

"I've decided we should break up."
"Whoa!"

"This 32-pack of Hot Pockets only cost $8 at Costco."
"Whoa!"

"I've spent the last four nights sleeping outside your house and taking pictures of you changing."
"Whooooa..."

And so on.

Given that it isn't pronounced as wo-ahh, I don't spell it like that. I spell it Woah. Looking at it now, I realize it looks kind of strange, but it's much more representative.

This gives it the necessary distinction from Woe (as in, "Woe unto you who eateth my Hot Pocket"), and is a more accurate set of directions for your mouth. The h at the end maintains the "oh" sound and keeps your lips in a neutral point, unlike an "a" ending which makes your tongue depress and your jaw open.

In short, Whoa is stupid and I'm using Woah forever.

There is a Whoa or two in my book, and I wish I could change it, but I don't want my first book to be full of made-up words.

Woah, this post is longer than I thought it would be.