ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

What sensible orthographic relationship could be shared by both woah and Noah?

fwiw (what with the free subscription and all)

†1. whoa ho ho, used to call attention from a distance. Obs.

a1616 Shakespeare Winter's Tale (1623) iii. iii. 76 He hallow'd but euen now. Whoa-ho-hoa.
1623 Shaks. Merry W. v. v. 187 Whoa hoe, hoe, Father Page.
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€
2. A word of command to a horse or other draught-animal to stop or stand still; also used otherwise in collocation with other words, as come hither whoa, gee-whoa, hait-whoa, whoa back. Hence used jocularly to a person as a command to stop or desist. (Cf. woa int.)

/wəʊ/
Forms: Also woah.(Show Less)
Etymology: Variant of whoa int.
Thesaurus »

= wo int. 2.

1841 Dickens Old Curiosity Shop ii. xxxviii. 3 Woa-a-a then, will you?
1856 Putnam's Monthly Mag. Nov. 530/1 With a loud ‘woah!’ the man stopped the beast [sc. ass].
1892 Chevalier Wot Cher! iv, ‘Woa! steady! Neddy Woa!’
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Derivatives

woa v. to stop (trans. and intr.) with the call of ‘woa’.

1870 S. Lanier Nine from eight 31, I woa'd my mules mighty easy.
1871 M. Legrand Cambr. Freshman 252 Woa, Princey, woa! But Prince wouldn't ‘woa.’

in family guy when stewie's doing that irritating "cool wHip" thing, thats what you wrongheaded whoa-advocates are sounding like. it's obvious just from looking at the word and the way people pronounce it that the expression of surprise is 'woah'. elements of what GR ring true though.

unless this is another orrible americanisation in which case im out.

I'd never seen "woah" until the last couple of years; assumed it was sloppy smartphone typing.

My trusty old Australian OED has only 'whoa' and lists only the definition about horses. Will not use either word until I have a definitive answer.

david walliams says woah if that helps

in family guy when stewie's doing that irritating "cool wHip" thing, thats what you wrongheaded whoa-advocates are sounding like.

So are you saying it should be spelled Cool Wiph?

Nobody knocks Stewie on my watch.

waht

wewh, close one

My friend just wrote "whoah" on Facebook.

from the nyt this morning:

"A few top universities have become more choosey about giving credit."

"choosey" with an e? guess the isley brothers approve

this post by Mark G reminded me of a question I had:

Yeah, but most if not all other female "non-pop-music" gets compared to Kate Bush.

now that 'non-pop-music' I think should be just 'non-pop music', but what are you supposed to do in general if you're adding a hyphenated prefix to a term that's already hyphenated? Two hyphens just don't look right.

Technically, the uh boy I don't know any of the terms for this, this is gonna be messy...

The original term drops the hyphen, and the new modifying term picks it up. Thus, "non-pop music".

right, that was my intuition. will come in useful someday i'm sure, thx.

Are you imagining, for instance, a magazine that employs a pop-music critic and a non-pop-music critic?

A similar example was discussed upthread.

(I would probably use both hyphens. Nabisco would use an en-dash: "non–pop music critic.")

I'm tired, so:

An era where...
or
An era when...

?

when, for me

An era of ______

well that all depends on whether you follow with an overarching description or a more specific event/occurrence?

If it's that specific, I don't think "era" would be the correct noun.

maybe so.

'when this happened' doesn;t have much of a ring to it though.

I would take era when over era where in most instances, but especially in cases where the signifier that follows is expressed as an activity, although where is acceptable, due to eras having boundaries. As in: "an era when women bobbed their hair and men wore KKK hoods."

The formulation era of would be more suitable where the signifier is expressed as an intransitive state or an abstraction: "an era of bobbed hair on women and KKK hoods on men..."

that's where i was, but i didn't know how to say that properly. clearly i should have asked on the copyeditors and grammar fiends thread

It is the Achilles’ heel of 3-D television: the clunky glasses that viewers must wear to see images pop out in 3-D.

"The Achilles' heel"? Really?

achilles's in any case imo

push the boat out like

Stupid or clumsy metaphors and similes are not strictly matters for grammar fiends, but rather for arbiters of style.

apostrophe with no additional "s" is AP style for proper names that end with "s"

but shouldn't it be "the Achilles heel" as in "the Fosbury flop"?

In my opinion one is referring to a particular heel that belonged to Achilles, so that using the possesive apostrophe is more appropriate than using no apostrophe. But that is just me talking, not an expert per se.

get an expert on the per se phone

trolling for groans

"achilles' heel" would be OK without the article

Weird that the thing that enables 3D is its weakness, but whatever.

Why don't we lead the revoltution and switch to "Achillean heel", thus saving future generations untold tears and heartache?

'weakness'

In fact I can't think of an instance in which 'weakness' would not do.

havin that

Ah, beer, my one weakness. My Achilles Heel, if you will.

In my opinion one is referring to a particular heel that belonged to Achilles

one is not! one is speaking metaphorically! otherwise:

"achilles' heel" would be OK without the article

would fly (so to speak): "achilles' heel always acted up when the storm clouds gathered over mount olympus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVpPLDREuwc

Pub near me has just rebranded to "Dr Ink's". The sign now reads:

Dr.Ink's                     ...and dining

A subheading reads

"Exercise independently of weight loss"

This has got to be "independent." Some editors just cut & paste from body text.

I think I'm changing it to

"Exercise effects independent of weight loss"

Is that comprehensible?

Is the story about exercise that has nothing to do with losing weight? Cardio, etc?

The section is about whether exercise can affect blood pressure ASIDE FROM a weight-loss element.

probably "effects of exercise"? can you use a comma to set off the "independent of weight loss"?

Comma there not really our style... and you have no idea how much I wish this was a "story," instead of a pile of poo perpetrated by doctors in Texas and editors in India.

Exercise independently of weight loss

That's a perfectly good imperative sentence you have there, directing the reader to take exercise without regard to any weight loss they might experience as a result.

the NYT and some others will say

"increased to $1000 from $500"

rather than

"increased from $500 to $1000"

i trip over this every time. presumably that's just because it seems less common. but that notwithstanding, is it more correct/better?