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You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. wallah

• Thread starter Thread starter poleman
• Start date Start date Aug 29, 2009

P

poleman

New Member

Xiamen,China Chinese English Hey guys. Do you know what 'wallah' means ? Its not what the dictionary says. There's a sentence "It makes girls insane in summer in the states. You know, the hair.So I just tie it up and wallah." So what the hell does it mean 'wallah'? B

boadicea7

Member

spanish Erm.....I think you mean 'Voilá' which is actually a French expression but very used in English too. Voila means 'There it is!' or 'there it goes'. Kinda like 'ta-dá!' W

Wondercow

Member

Toronto, Canada English - Canadian

poleman said: Hey guys. Do you know what 'wallah' means ? Its not what the dictionary says. There's a sentence "It makes girls insane in summer in the states. You know, the hair.So I just tie it up and wallah." So what the hell does it mean 'wallah'? Click to expand...

It's a bastardization of the French loanword voilà /vwʌˈlɑː/. Many Americans pronounce and spell it just as you have found it. It's an exclamation meaning there it is, there you go, there you are, etc.: If I tighten this bolt here and turn that screw there.... voilà! The car works again!

boadicea7 said: Erm.....I think you mean 'Voilá' Click to expand...

Grave accent "à" acute accent "á" Last edited: Aug 29, 2009

ewie

Senior Member

Manchester English English Well, I never knew that! I reckon British folks would either (a) spell it voila if they knew how to spell it, or (b) not even attempt it if they didn't. My first thought was that it was an informal-phonetic spelling of wallow (def. B4). Welcome to the forum, Poleman

cuchuflete

Senior Member

Maine, EEUU EEUU-inglés

Wondercow said: Many Americans pronounce and spell it just as you have found it. Click to expand...

That claim about how "many Americans" spell voilà is nonsense. I have never seen it spelled wallah before reading this thread. Can you provide some evidence to support what you have said? The dictionary definition for this combination of letters is, of course, unrelated to the exclamation.

wallah –noun Anglo-Indian. a person in charge of, employed at, or concerned with a particular thing (used in combination): a book wallah; a ticket wallah. Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009. Click to expand...

Last edited: Aug 29, 2009 W

Wondercow

Member

Toronto, Canada English - Canadian

cuchuflete said: That claim about how "many Americans" spell voilà is nonsense. I have never seen it spelled wallah before reading this thread. Can you provide some evidence to support what you have said? Click to expand...

Other than anecdotal evidence as I hear it all the time when I'm in the U.S., on U.S. television, in U.S. movies, and even read it in U.S. newspapers, you might enjoy these links: Eggcorn—a University of Pennsylvania blog This eHow article WordReference forums (the question is from an Australian but the first response, from Minnesota, implies familiarity. This interesting Groundspeak thread From the eHow article:

I see it in online articles and even in the local newspaper. Someone explains something and then says, "Walla!" Click to expand...

There are many, many more. This was just a cursory Google search for "wallah voilà".

cuchuflete

Senior Member

Maine, EEUU EEUU-inglés There is nothing in the Eggcorn link to suggest that "wallah" is a common written form used by "many Americans". In fact, it presents a number of variants found in writing, and does not suggest that any are seen more frequently than either of the "proper" spellings, which include both the accented and unaccented forms of the word borrowed from the French. The eHow article begins with this headline: "How to Use Walla Properly (Voila)" It does not include any mention that I can find of the spelling used in the first post of this thread. As to the comment by mplsray, in the WRF thread, it is a comment about how some English speakers pronounce the French word. There is nothing in Ray's post to suggest that this is a common spelling among Americans. "I always took "Wallah!" to be an English-speaker's reinterpretation of Voilà! due to /vw/ being such a rare combination of sounds in English:". The Groundspeak link provides another spelling, quickly corrected by the next poster:

Boy do I fill stupid , I was on the google maps they say there is one there for PM but dont show it , I went back to the reg. map page and WALA! there they all are SORRY! Click to expand...

voila Click to expand...

No evidence in that forum that "wallah" is used by "many Americans". I don't dispute for an instant the likelihood that many Americans use one or more pronunciations that are not faithful to the French original, but to assert, with such flimsy evidence, that many Americans write using the spelling in the first post of this thread is just not credible. A less than cursory Google search for "wallah voilà" shows lots of comments about the difference between the loan word and the Indian English term, as well as many that point out that wallah, wala, whala, and other misspellings exist. I haven't yet seen anything to substantiate the claim that Americans commonly write wallah. W

Wayland

Banned

English. The original poster misheard "voila" of that I think we are all agreed. Everyone in the UK (in my experience)would pronounce this with a hard "V" even the broadest of dialect speakers. A wallah , given as AngloEnglish in the sample supplied in post 5, would, I posit be regarded as an everyday English word nowadays (used in the right context usually anecdotal or jocularly with an adjective) to mean a menial worker. M

mplsray

Senior Member

Minneapolis, Minnesota USA English, USA

Wayland said: The original poster misheard "voila" of that I think we are all agreed. Click to expand...

I do not agree. I speak French and can tell the difference between voilà pronounced with and without a v, and I have definitely heard Americans say that word with an initial /w/. A

a little edgy

Senior Member

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA English I agree that some Americans pronounce "voila" as "wah-LAH!" However, I've never seen it spelled that way and think/hope most people either know the correct spelling or avoid writing the word altogether. I do think there is a general awareness that it is a French word. You must log in or register to reply here. Share: Bluesky LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Share Link

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