I can't find it in the dictionary and several people have told me different ways to spell the word representing "the sound made at a disgusting thought."
Is it:
Ewww Eeuww
or some other variation? If you don't know, could you at least tell me which spelling works better in your opinion? Thanks.
Posted by JeffBarton (Member # 5693) on :
My reference is its use in scripts for a recent TV show.
"Eww" is used for an ordinary level of disgust. "Ewww" is used when the source of disgust continues, ie. a speaker continues on a disgusting subject even after the first protesting Eww. More Es and capitalization can be used for additional degrees.
Posted by Lynda (Member # 3574) on :
I"ve seen (and used it) as "eauw" which seems to draw out the sound more. You can almost "hear" an accent of sorts, or the voice drawing out the word by using the three vowels in a row.
Lynda
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
If I saw "eauw" my first thought would be "what the hell is that? that's not even a word," so, not that it couldn't be correct, but my first reaction is likely to be shared by many readers. This is because when we read we aren't sounding things out, we're reading. Seeing words and sentences as whole ideas, not just syllables.
I think the best conventional way to express "eww" is exactly like you put in the header of this topic, "eww," because everyone knows what that means.
Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :
my guess would be that every publisher has their own set of preferences for nonstandard words. Check out how it's spelled in a book by some publisher that you would submit to, and just go with that. Newspapers frequently make arbitrary decisions about non standard words, just to get the issue resolved, and then tend to stay with that until the managing editor leaves (or gets a stake through the heart, but that would be a different story).
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
"Eww" is the most common spelling, and the only published spelling that I have seen. In my mind, "eauw" looks like a sound that a donkey would make. Posted by DebbieKW (Member # 5058) on :
I just saw "Ewww" in a comic strip. I think the "Ewww" spelling wins unless the editor tells me to change it. Thanks, everyone.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Well, when I was writing Internet Fan Fiction, I generally spelled it "Ewwwwwww." "E" followed by seven "w"s. It was a common phrase on the series, and seemed to require a longer phrasing...
Posted by oliverhouse (Member # 3432) on :
Google will show you how many hits a particular term has, and can be used as a poor man's popularity metric. (Googlefight has used this in a particularly amusing way.)
In general, it appears that more w's means fewer hits. "eww" garners 2.3 million hits, "ewww" 1.7 million, "ewwwwwww" only 96,000.
"ew" means too many things for Google to return any worthwhile result, but it seems off to me; I would use a minimum of two w's.
Regards, Oliver
Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :
Oliverhouse, that is a great idea! Thanks!
Posted by HuntGod (Member # 2259) on :
I'd go with Eww as well...and would be very confused by Eauw.