Lately, I’ve been noticing that on many television shows, when a woman younger than 40 is told some good news or is just a little bit excited, she often responds with WOOOOOOOO! In the real world, I’ve seen the phenomenon many times; sometimes there’s just spontaneous WOOOOOOOO!ing for what seems like no reason.
I don’t remember women screaming WOOOOOOOO! all the time when I was growing up in the 1980s … I think. Is screaming WOOOOOOOO! some new cultural phenomenon? Do women in other countries do the same?
There are lots of women who randomly scream WOOOOO! at my gym while they’re on the treadmill or doing some particularly hard workout. Most of them are around 30-50 years old. Being a 29-year-old female myself, I wonder if next month on my birthday, I’ll start screaming WOOOO!, too. I hope not. Last time one of those ladies went WOOOOO! while I was working out, I almost went flying off the back of my treadmill. That would have hurt.
There are some college freshmen women screaming that outside of my window right now. I’d ask them, but from what I hear right now, I think that they are apparently about to become the first drunk college freshmen sorostitutes in the history of this University and they’re quite elated to be taking such an innovative step in college socialization.
There is written evidence in my old high school yearbook (late '60s) that if young females didn’t vocalize WOOO they at least knew how it was spelled and when to apply it in signing a buddy’s yearbook.
It’s not that new, but I, for one, haven’t said it in years. But then I have never said, “Woot.”
I had the experience in the Y of being practically the only person in the cardio area, except one other woman who kept ejaculating (I mean this in the Tom Swifty sense) things that sounded like “Whoo!” and other words which I took to be her self-encouragement. I figured, okay, people do that. I’ve heard it in aerobics classes–from the outside, please understand I was not IN the aerobics class at the time. Then she climbed on the stairmaster next to me and started going at it and all of a sudden she turned to me and yelled, "Bears, BEARS BEARS!!" About two seconds later she added, “Oh, I have Tourette’s, these things happen. I can’t help it.”
(Okay, so as I peeled myself off the ceiling and checked my heart rate I began to realize why we were the only two people in the cardio room at the moment…she may not have been in control of her Tourette’s but sheesh, there were other Stairmasters available)
I yell “Woo” sometimes at sporting events, however, I often hear men cheering the same thing.
I think it just sounds better than yelling “WAA!” or “WHY!” Though on occasion I’ve been known to yell “WHEEE!”
There was a song in the 80’s, I think, by Jeffrey Osborne, discussing the "wooo’.
The chorus:
"and you woo-woo-woo, and you woo-woo-woo, and you woo-woo-woo, and you woooo. and you woo-woo-woo…
Assuming that Jeffrey was singing to a chick this is recorded evidence of the "woo’ thing.
Hon. mention: Wu Tang Clan - they speak of the "wu’ occasionally.
I’ve noticed the local female college students wooo-ing everything in sight. The older women I’ve heard mostly seem to be very drunk. Annoying but generally ignorable.
I have said it, but in a heavily sarcastic tone rather than one of excited approval. For that matter, I’ve typed it and (undoubtedly) forgotten to point out the intended sarcasm. :smack:
It’s making a come back along with with Rick Flair “Nature Boy” of the WWE. Wooooooo!
Well, probably not, but that’s what it made me think of. My husband (much to my chagrin) watches professional wresting. There is a lot of Wooooo! there.
meow meow, that’s Nature Boy Rick Flair. And his miserable old man wooo never was and never will be any match for Macho Man Randy Savage’s eYeaahhhhhhhh!
Anyway, I thought wooooing only happened on television. I’ve never heard a woman (who wasn’t underneath me) scream out a woooooo!
(What?!? I participate in women’s rassling matches!)
