Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a four part pancocojams series on the African American Vernacular English word "woah" and the Hip Hop dance "[Hit the] Woah".
Part I provides information about the meanings of the African American Vernacular English term "woah".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/02/information-about-woah-dance-youtube.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II presents some information about the [Hit the] Woah dance and showcases several YouTube videos of Woah dance battles.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/02/krypto9095-featuring-d3mstreet-woah_28.html for Part III of this series. Part III showcases the official YouTube video and includes the lyrics for one of the numerous songs that popularized the Woah dance. Explanations for some of the African American Vernacular English words in that song are included in this post.
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The content of this post is presented for cultural and linguistics purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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WHAT THE WORD "WOA" MEANS IN STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH
From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whoa
"Definition of whoa
1—a command (as to a draft animal) to stand still
2: cease or slow a course of action or a line of thought : pause to consider or reconsider —often used to express a strong reaction (such as alarm or astonishment)
First Known Use of whoa
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1"...
-snip-
The "express a strong reaction (such as astonishment") portion of #2 in that definition is closer to the vernacular meaning of "woah".
By the way, although the English words "woe" and "woa" ("woah") are pronounced the same way, the exclamation "woa" doesn't have the same meaning as the noun "woe". "Woe" means "misery", "sorrow", or "distress".
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WHAT THE WORD "WOAH" MEANS IN VERNACULAR ENGLISH*
Excerpt #1:
From https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/whoa
EXCLAMATION
1. Used to express surprise, interest, or alarm, or to command attention.
‘whoa, that's huge!’
‘whoa dudes!’
-snip-
The definition given as #2 on that page is actually the standard definition for the English word "woa":
"Used as a command to a horse to make it stop or slow down, or to urge a person to stop or slow down"
-snip-
*It's my position that these vernacular English meanings come from African American [Vernacular] English which is the source of many American English vernacular terms/sayings.
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Excerpt #2
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whoa
"whoa
1. To express surprise (interj)
2. To express astonishment(interj)
3. To indicate a desire for one to end that of which they are speaking (interj)
4. Evolved from a song to describe something that you're not quite sure exactly how to describe (adj)
Whoa can also be spelled "woah" though there are many arguments started by bored people about which way is correct.
1. "Whoa! Don't do that, you scared me."
2. "Whoa, that roller coaster is fast."
3. "Whoa, okay, that's enough."
4. "That car is so cool, it's like, whoa."
by Z October 03, 2004
-snip-
#1, #2, and #4 in this entry refer to the vernacular meaning of the word "woah".
Btw, I'm not that commenter, although some people have given me the nickname "Z" since my name is "Azizi".
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Excerpt #3
From https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/whoa-or-woah-correct-spelling-and-variants-of-the-increasingly-popular-word.html "Whoa! Woah?! Whoah.
How an old exclamation became the Internet’s most variously spelled word." By MATTHEW J.X. MALADY, DEC 29, 2013
..."Without question, this has been an especially whoa-full year. But why? “Whoa” is hardly a new word; it dates back to at least the early 17th century. At that time it was used mostly in shouted form and was intended to garner the attention of someone in the distance. Around the the mid-1800s, people began using “whoa” to halt forward-moving horses, and by the latter half of the 20th century it had morphed into an expression for conveying alarm, surprise, or advanced interest. (Messrs. Bill and Ted solidified the strength of this usage in 1989, Joey Lawrence sealed the deal during the ’90s, and Keanu Reeves reappeared without Bill S. Preston, Esq. to help usher the word into the new millennium via The Matrix.)
The expression is now exceedingly common, and in 2013 the continuing ascension of its usage overlapped with the advancing popularity of social media to create an unstoppable force of media momentum.
[...]
But where “woah” with the “h” at the end really blew up this year was on social media. Typing the hashtag “#woah” into the search box on Twitter at any given moment results in something on the order of 50 tweets an hour. Remove the number sign from the front of “woah” and the result is more like 50 tweets a minute. (“Woah he got pushed,” “Woah, where did my highlighter go?” and “WOAH! Heat wave! 34 degrees!” just scrolled by on my computer screen.) Even putting aside Twitter, there were thousands of Instagram and Vine and Tumblr posts tagged with “woah” in 2013.
And if you were thinking you could perhaps quarantine yourself so as to preclude exposure to the Today show–style “woah” by avoiding all forms of social media and, say, spending some time relaxing in front of the TV, think again. This month, the History channel began airing an episode of its popular series Pawn Stars under the title, “Woah Pilgrim.”
[...]
All things considered, it’s been a banner year for “whoa,” no matter how you prefer to spell it. In fact, the word hasn’t seen this level of media saturation and pop cultural prominence since 2000, when rapper Black Rob released a rugged, very un-PC and not-safe-for-work, pre–Earl Sweatshirt club banger called “Whoa!” All the spellings, taken together, combined to form a Voltron-type superword that was pervasive in our communications this year. Sure, if you want to be all Amira about it, you could point out that “whoa” with the “h” following the “w” and an “a” at the end was once again the version that was most commonly used—due largely to the stamp of approval that goes along with being sanctioned by various books held in high regard. But there’s nothing particularly new about the word spelled that way showing up all over the place (with its trusty sidekick, the exclamation point). This year in whoa-ness was noteworthy instead because it was a magical and ridiculous time when more people than ever were spelling this goofy word in more ways than ever.”...
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Excerpt #4
From https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/whoa-woah.php "Woah’ shows no sign of being reined in"
By Merrill Perlman, FEBRUARY 27, 2018
"THE WORLD IS TOO SERIOUS, and everyone needs a little fun. So, let’s horse around a little and talk about a term that frequently get misspelled.
We wrote a few years ago about the difference between “rain,” “reign,” and “rein.” The first is precipitation, the second is royalty or lording it over something, and the third is controlling, the way a horse’s “reins” tell it what to do.
The headline on that piece was “Whoa, Nelly,” which brings us to the spelling of a word that’s more of a sound: “Whoa.” Except that it’s often misspelled as “woah.”
“Whoa” (or “woah”) means “stop,” but it’s become a casual conversation-stopper roughly translating to “holy crap.”
[...]
A high schooler appearing in a play is quoted as saying “There are moments in the play where there is a significant pause, and then you think, ‘Woah, that just happened!’” A high school wrestler said “‘I just walked in, sat down against the wall and it was like, ‘Woah, I’m up here as a ninth-grader.’” A man struck by lightning on a golf course said: “You don’t think something like that is ever going to happen until it happens to you and then it’s like, woah. That was a bad choice.” The misspelling almost always occurs in a quotation rather than in narrative writing."...
-snip-
Instead of "holy crap", I think the exclamation "wow" is a better synonym for the vernacular word "woah", except that "woah" is an expression of surprise, but not necessarily of admiration.
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This concludes Part I of this three part pancocojams series.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
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