The Wall Street Journal thought this was earth-shaking enough to publish a whole article on:
Tales of ‘Woah’ Have Oldsters Saying ‘Whoa’
For Benjamin Hall, there is only one way to spell the word “whoa.” And it’s not in the dictionary.
Mr. Hall, a 16-year-old high school junior from Huntsville, Texas, spells out w-o-a-h in social media posts or text messages to friends when he wants to convey surprise or amazement. He doesn’t care that most dictionaries list only whoa as the proper spelling.
In fact, for Mr. Hall, there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who write woah, and “old people.”
“W-h-o-a, that just doesn’t make sense,” he says. He compared it to using the word icebox instead of refrigerator. “It makes me think of older teachers. It just comes off as a little odd.”
For what it’s worth, my two teenagers think WOAH is illiterate. “It’s clearly WHOA,” they say. Then again, we live around horses.