Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I just received an email from a colleague. Apologising for the late reply, he begins:
“Friday was a disaster from woe to go, sorry about not calling.”
I’ve confirmed with him that this was unintentional. In context, it expands quite nicely on the original “from woah to go”.
Last edited by twelveplusone (2008-05-11 21:48:43)
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“From whoa to go†is new to me. Google Book Search finds only 8 instances of it, all since 1977, and they are mostly (if not all) from Australian or New Zealand publishers.
The Google web search finds a lot more, but of the first 20, 5 were on New Zealand sites and 5 on Australian.
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Thanks Jim. It hadn’t occurred to me till now, but the correct phrase is “from go to whoa” as in “from start to stop” or “beginning to end”. I hadn’t realised it’s peculiar to Australian and New Zealand, but it is listed in “Brewer’s Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable” (http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=3DiHy31K30oC)
In NZ, it seems to have fossilised into its opposite – “whoa to go” – for no apparent, or even good, reason. Hence my error. I submit it as an obscure eggcorn based on a local inversion of a popular Australasian idiom.
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I’m not familiar with “whoa to go.” To my ear it seems as if “go to whoa” (i.e. “start to finish”) would make more sense as an idiom. The usage in the example twelveplusone gave seems vaguely eggcornish since the writer was talking about a disastrous (woeful?) day. But otherwise, I would peg it as a misspelling rather than an eggcorn.
Edit: My post was submitted about the same time as twelveplusone’s response. Glad to know my instinct was correct about the idiom.
Last edited by JonW719 (2008-07-08 16:09:52)
Feeling quite combobulated.
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I’ve never heard “whoa to go” – even from my many Kiwi acquaintances – but, as an Aussie, am entirely at home with “go to whoa” (the latter word rhyming with “show” – not “goer”).
Gordon Balfour Haynes, professional verbivore, Australia
Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true. Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
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