While instant messaging someone, I said:
spudart: WHOA IS ME
spudart: how do you spell whoa?
spudart: woe
spudart: WOE IS ME
spudart: i don’t think i’ve EVER typed out that word in my entire life
(By the way, I was being sarcastic in this instant message, i am not truly woed)
Has anyone out there ever actually typed the word “woe” before?
Other than the maybe 2 times I’ve ever typed “woe is me”… no. (That makes 3! .. i think.)
I cannot recall ever typing w-o-e, but I don’t think I would type whoa is me, but woe is me, but I’m not the “woe is me” type either.
A search of my blog reveals no fewer than 5 posts containing this word, so, apparently, I type it TOO much! 🙂
ha! searching your blog to see if you used that word before. That’s funny, Becky. FIVE times‽ Here’s how many times certain words appear in the title of my blog posts on spudart.org: http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/40113/spudart.org_blog_titles I was gonna make it a blog post someday, but here’s the sneak preview in the comments. 🙂
Yes.
I love this string! I was a linguistics major, and one of the things you study is how heavily the brain is wired for spoken language. The prevalence of homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings/spellings) in English are a great way of revealing that when we write, we are fundamentally writing what we hear in our heads, and we sometimes fail to pass that through the filter for meaning. I find myself writing “won” for “one” surprisingly often (or at least typing a W), and i see people swap yea (like a yes in congress) and yay. I’m sure we’ve all seen the they’re/their/there mistakes oodles of times.
I cannot recall ever typing w-o-e, but I don’t think I would type whoa is me, but woe is me, but I’m not the “woe is me” type either. http://www.dornfall.com
WOA