Ogle

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha.

Hi, who’s this?

Hi, this is Sarah calling from Los Angeles, California.

Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the show.

What can we help you with?

Well, I needed some advice on how to properly pronounce a word. This word has been bothering me for years now. I had a discussion with my mom and my sister, my aunt. We’re all pretty much readers all the time, so we all have good vocabularies, but I think because we read words a lot, we don’t always know the right way to pronounce them.

So I had said to my mom something about ogle, O-G-L-E, and that’s how I pronounced it, ogle. My mom said, I think you mean ogle. And I was like, ogle? I always pronounce it in my head as ogle. So I will say my mom typically has a better vocabulary than I do, so I usually trust how she pronounces things.

Then my aunt said, I always thought it was pronounced Oogle. Oh, dear. So the three of you are talking about this, and one says Ogle, Ogle, and Oogle?

Yeah, and Oogle to me sounds the most outlandish, being that there’s only one O, right? So I think my mom and I both dismissed my aunt’s pronunciation. But the thing is, I’ve been hearing Oogle. I have asked a few of my friends how they pronounce it, and I’ve gotten oogle more than once. And to top it off, I heard it on TV the other day, oogle.

Really?

So, yes. So is this a pronunciation now? Are people saying oogle? That’s really my question.

No! Is this a new thing? They may be saying it, but it’s not right.

Well, they’re… oh, Grant and I are going to disagree about this. We’re going to agree on one thing. Oogle is the best pronunciation ever. Far and away. Far and away. The most common, the most accepted. 99.99% of people say ogle. That’s it. Ogle. Ogle.

So my mom is right. You ogle it. It’s ogling. I was ogled. Don’t ogle me. That kind of thing. But you’re right too, Sarah. Ogle is fine. But ogle is probably like 1% or 2% of the population. It’s a very tiny number of people. See, you’re special. But it does exist.

Oh, no. Only one dictionary that I checked has that as a variant pronunciation, though, in the American Heritage Dictionary.

Oh, I think Merriam-Webster does.

Oh, do they?

Yeah, I’m sure they do. I might have looked in the wrong one. But it’s the kind of question that comes up fairly regularly. The oogle thing I’ve heard before, and here’s where I start to waffle a little bit.

He’s waffling about oogling. If you look in the old slang dictionaries, you will find a wide variety of similar words that aren’t this word, that are pronounced exactly the same way and mean to give someone the eye or to look a sconce at them or to flash your peepers at them or to give them the old sexy up and down, you know, that kind of thing. And they all are pronounced, they’re all spelled with double O, oogle.

Oh.

Yeah. So I’m just saying, like, it’s out there and it could exist in this weird slangosphere that never quite makes it to the standard language and doesn’t actually show up in the dictionaries.

But.

Maybe my aunt’s mind, she’s picturing it with two O’s.

Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.

Yeah. If you see it with one O, how can you possibly pronounce it oogle? Right?

Okay. I agree with you on that. I have to tell my mom that she’s right.

No.

Yeah, don’t tell her.

Yeah, don’t tell her. Does she listen to the show?

I don’t think she does, but I mean. If she hears it, she’s going to know.

She’s going to know. I’ll probably have to say it for her. You were right, Mom.

Okay, well, thank you so much.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling, Sarah. Much appreciated.

All right, you have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye. We want to hear your family’s disputes about language, 877-929-9673.