English can sometimes play tricks on us. Just when you think you’ve mastered it, you come across two words that look alike, sound alike, but are as different as jollof rice and fried rice. A fine example is whooping and whopping. Many people mix them up, and honestly, it’s easy to see why. Just one little letter and the meaning changes completely.
The word whooping comes from the verb whoop, which means to shout or cry out loudly, usually because of excitement, encouragement, or strong emotion. If a group of children is playing and screaming in joy, you can say they are whooping. If football fans jump up and cheer when their team scores a goal, you can also say they are whooping. For example:
A few examples make it clearer:
- The crowd was whooping with joy when the band climbed the stage.
- The children kept whooping as they slid down the hill.
- He rushed into the hall whooping loudly, startling everyone.
Apart from this, you also see whooping in the medical term whooping cough, which is a disease that makes people cough in a noisy, gasping way. In that case, it is not about excitement but about the sound of the cough itself.
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Now switch gears to whopping. This word is not about sound at all. It’s an informal way of saying something is very large or unusually big. If you hear someone say, “He was paid a whopping amount,” don’t expect noise; expect big money. If a shop is selling bread for a whopping ₦5,000, you’ll probably shake your head and walk out.
Look at these examples:
- She received a whopping sum of ₦10 million for the contract.
- The new stadium can hold a whopping 60,000 fans.
- He ate a whopping five plates of amala in one sitting.
So here’s the trick: if it’s about shouting or cheering, the word is whooping. If it’s about something huge, surprising, or oversized, the word is whopping. Don’t swap them. Saying “The man won a whooping ₦1 million” would make it sound like the money was screaming. And saying “The boys were whopping in the field” makes it sound like they were very big instead of very loud.
The safest way to remember is this: whooping is for noise, whopping is for size. They may sound like twins, but they’re not even cousins.
