# Pronunciation of "wolf" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 9, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645 "2010-10-09T23:49:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/1 "2010-10-09T23:49:30Z")
I just watched part of Wolf Blitzer’s interview of Congressman Joe Sestak. Several times, Sestak addressed Blitzer as “Woof,” and he also used the phrase “a woof at the door.” I have never heard “wolf” pronounced without the “L.” Is this a regionalism? Sestak is from S.E. Pennsylvania. ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/2 "2010-10-09T23:56:30Z")
I’m from West Texas, and I think most people pronounce the “L” here. But I have heard it pronounced as “woof;” I’ve always written off as being incorrect or lazy, like “nuke-u-lur.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/3 "2010-10-09T23:59:09Z")
I pronounce it with the ‘L’. I tend to pronounce it with a long-ish ‘o’, rather than a ‘uh’ sound. Not quite the German vowel sound, but not ‘woolf’ or ‘wuhlf’. More like ‘wohlf’. I’m from Southern California. I’ve noticed that Mike Wolfe of _American Pickers_, who is from (or at least in) Iowa, sounds like he’s pronouncing his name ‘Woof’. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/4 "2010-10-10T00:03:19Z")
Wolf, always. “Woof” sounds like the way you’d pronounce it if you were trying to insult a werewolf. _“Oooo, is the big bad werewoof gonna try to eat me?”_ ---
**Author:** ![ErinPuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/5 "2010-10-10T00:06:21Z")
I’m also from southeast PA (about five miles from where Sestak is from), and I pronounce the L, but I think I’ve heard other people omit it. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/6 "2010-10-10T00:21:59Z")
I pronounce the “l,” but I know lots of people who don’t. An elision isn’t necessarily either incorrect or lazy. Most of you don’t enunciate the second “e” in “vegetable,” for example. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/7 "2010-10-10T00:26:56Z")
I’ve never even thought about the way I pronounce it. I just said it out loud a few times and it came out “wolf” so I guess that’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/8 "2010-10-10T00:28:28Z")
I had a roommate in college (who grew up in Philadelphia, but spent summers on a kibbutz in Israel) who thought “wolf” rhymed with “golf”. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/9 "2010-10-10T00:57:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Wolf, always. “Woof” sounds like the way you’d pronounce it if you were trying to insult a werewolf. _“Oooo, is the big bad werewoof gonna try to eat me?”_ Yes, to me it sounded like he was mocking Wolf Blitzer, who must have been holding back some significant laughter. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/10 "2010-10-10T01:13:51Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Wolf, always. “Woof” sounds like the way you’d pronounce it if you were trying to insult a werewolf. _“Oooo, is the big bad werewoof gonna try to eat me?”_ > > Yes, to me it sounded like he was mocking Wolf Blitzer, who must have been holding back some significant laughter. Nah, it’s a common PA thing. I say the L, but I know a LOT of people that don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/11 "2010-10-10T01:33:12Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I pronounce it with the ‘L’. I tend to pronounce it with a long-ish ‘o’, rather than a ‘uh’ sound. Not quite the German vowel sound, but not ‘woolf’ or ‘wuhlf’. More like ‘wohlf’. I’m from Southern California. Do you mean that you rhyme it with “golf”? Or that it rhymes with something like “goal-f”? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/12 "2010-10-10T01:36:33Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Do you mean that you rhyme it with “golf”? Or that it rhymes with something like “goal-f”? Definitely does not rhyme with ‘golf’. More like the German pronunciation (only with a ‘w’ sound instead of a ‘v’ sound, obviously), but not quite as full an ‘oh’ sound. Like ‘look’ with an ‘L’ thrown in, and a little fuller vowel sound. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/13 "2010-10-10T01:45:23Z")
But the German pronunciation does pretty much rhyme with the English word “golf”. If it you rhyme the vowel with “look”, that’s just the standard English pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/14 "2010-10-10T01:45:49Z")
I said “woof” for a long time, but trained myself to say it the correct way. I occasionally still have to make a conscious effort to say it correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/15 "2010-10-10T01:53:11Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > But the German pronunciation does pretty much rhyme with the English word “golf”. If it you rhyme the vowel with “look”, that’s just the standard English pronunciation. In American English, ‘golf’ sounds like ‘gahlf’. Kind of like ‘all’. German is an ‘oh’ sound. I don’t exactly rhyme it with ‘look’. As I said, it’s a ‘fuller’ sound. You can’t really describe the difference in text. It’s like ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ (in the American pronunciation). There’s a difference, but it’s too subtle to describe in text. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/16 "2010-10-10T01:55:50Z")
OK. I think this is one of those cases where we need IPA. “Golf” and (German) “wolf” rhyme in my head, but perhaps not if you are a speaker of American English, which doesn’t really use that short O sound. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/17 "2010-10-10T02:35:10Z")
I pronounce it both ways. I say it with the “L” sound when it’s the name of the animal and I was woof, without the “L” sound when it’s like a dog bark ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/18 "2010-10-10T03:03:36Z")
My seventh grade English teacher was from somewhere else (not New England) and she said “woof.” Kids gave her a hard time about it when she read something about wolves to us and said woof every time she got to the word wolf. I’ve never heard anyone else say it that way. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/19 "2010-10-10T03:20:59Z")
Hell, in Pennsylvania, they don’t even pronounce the “l” in their state’s name. Everyone I know from Pennsylvania says “Penns A vania.” ---
**Author:** ![LorieSmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@LorieSmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LorieSmurf)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645/20 "2010-10-10T07:12:35Z")
I say wolf, my husband says woof. I make fun of him when he says it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-wolf/556645.md?page=2)