“Wannabe” or “Wannabee”: Which Spelling Is Standard?

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

This is Chuck Hampton calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Chuck.

Welcome to the show.

Well, I’m a member of a van owners group called the Winnebago Solus Owners and Wannabes because it’s for people both who have bought one and people who are hoping to buy one.

And a conflict erupted recently when an administrator of the group changed the spelling of wannabe. It had been spelled W-A-N-N-A-B-E with just a single E at the end. And he changed it to Winnebago Solus Owners and Wannabes with two E’s at the end. And that ignited quite a bit of controversy.

A lot of people felt it should be one E and others felt it should be two E’s. And I was afraid we were going to have a big split over this.

Oh, dear. Like a Baptist church.

Exactly. I was hoping to get a little clarification about what y’all thought might be more correct, or even if either of them would be correct. I’m not sure that’s really proper English, but I was hoping there’d be some guidance one way or the other.

What was the administrator’s argument for spelling wannabe with two E’s on the end? It seems like someone had suggested to him that it should be with two E’s because there’s another van owner’s group with a similar name and actually more than one. And some of the others are using it with two E’s. Ours was using it with one. And so it was presumed that we were wrong and they were correct.

I personally don’t have any idea. I know that looking at it, either one neither really looks right. But when at least phonetically with two E’s, you can tell how that should be pronounced. Whereas with one E, you know, you might think it’s one, one, one, a or something rather than one of the just if you were trying to look at the word and guess how it should be pronounced.

So I’m kind of leaning towards two E’s, but I don’t know, you know, that I can resolve this argument without bloodshed in our group.

Maybe a van race.

Van rage, exactly.

Or who can load in and load out fastest.

Yeah, this is an interesting one. I can see the argument about adding that extra E, making it easier to automatically know how it’s pronounced. But I don’t feel like it’s that unusual of a word.

There are occasions, particularly when it was new in the 1970s, where wannabe was spelled with a hyphen between the wanna and the B. And wanna is a standalone kind of contraction word for want to has existed for at least 100 years. So that’s got its own life and story beyond its existence inside the word wannabe.

But the single E spelling is by far and away, like 99 to 1, the most established spelling of wannabe.

Okay.

Yeah.

Did not realize that. Now, you can change the spelling if you want to be different, but just doing it to go along with these other groups. I mean, let’s face it. Where is this group? Is this an online group?

It is an online group, and we have members from all over the United States. It’s actually a really active group, and it’s something we learn a lot from each other about all the ins and outs of RVing through this group. So it’s been a lifesaver for me.

Yeah, I bet. Going along with the group for learning from each other about vans and RVs and stuff is one thing, but the expertise in the group isn’t language necessarily. I’m glad that you came to us.

Yeah. But, you know, what’s funny about this is the older form of wannabe is actually would-be. Talking about people as a would-be or using would-be as an adjective, you know, the would-be sailor or the would-be soldier or the would-be actor was used in pretty much the same way. And that we would never add an extra E to because it clearly looks like would be, but that was always hyphenated. And so very clearly two words with a hyphen in it.

Chuck, you almost had me persuaded there with the misreading it. I was thinking Wanabi, you know, sometimes when I look at it, and then with Winnebago, you know, Winnebago, Wanabi, what’s that? Like a Japanese name or something.

Yeah.

Exactly. So I was laid in that way, but since, you know, he mentioned that, you know, the vast majority are going with the single E. That’s pretty persuasive.

So the argument is still raging and it hasn’t been settled yet? There hasn’t been any discussion of it here in the last couple of days, but the admin has not budged. He’s left it with the newer version where there’s two E’s at the end. But I’m sure when this conversation comes to light that it’s going to reignite the Civil War.

I mean, there is an option here just to embrace it and make a new logo for the group that has like a bee driving, you know, RVing around the country or something, right? Incorporate the bee logo.

We could do that. We could maybe rebrand it and avoid any future altercations.

Yeah, I mean, just take a little bit of humor and avoid the skirmishes.

Well, Chuck, keep us posted. I want to know if our conflict resolution helped.

I will do that. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Thank you so much.

Take care now.

Appreciate it, Chuck.

Bye-bye.

Happy trails.