Talk:woof

RFV discussion: November 2023–January 2025

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woof

"Initialism of work on an organic farm". Seems to exist, but not really finding many qualifying uses. A 2009 quote treats it as a verb ("to woof"), while a 2020 quote uses the form WOOF. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:16, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Jberkel: has split the noun and verb senses and added some quotations (thanks!), but I think this still requires verification as the quotations evince a variety of spellings like wwoof and WOOF, but not woof. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:50, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

The main form of the word is "wwoof" (willing work on organic farms). The extra w (willing) is because WOOFers (wwoofers) aren't usually paid: its a room, board, and education arrangement. I think we can probably find enough uses of "woof" as a verb to call it a variant of wwoof, but wwoof should be the main lemma. WOOF is the World Organization of Organic Farms. The noun sense (work on organic farms) is probably not citeable, except as "wwoof" (willing ...) Kiwima (talk)

@Kiwima: thanks. Is there evidence that the first w of wwoof stands for willing? I'd have thought it's just an acronym of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or World Wide Organization of Organic Farms (according to "w:WWOOF". Anyway, looking forward to seeing what verb uses of woof you can find. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

"woof" as a verb is cited. Some authors say the first "w" is for "willing", which led me to say that, but as I investigate further, I am beginning to think that is an ex post facto interpretation, and that it is really just modeled after WWOOF. WOOF seems to be an alt form of WWOOF, introduced by people who have heard it pronounced but not seen it spelled. (I added some cites to WOOF, and they unpack the acronym in a variety of ways.) In short, I think the usage started with WWOOF (which is a definite organization and acronym), which led to WWOOFer, wwoofer, WWOOF as a verb, and wwoof as a verb. Later, you get woofer, and woof as a verb from people who have just heard it spoken. Meanwhile WWOOF is a loose enough organization, that some branches call themselves WOOF, unpacked as World Organization of Organic Farmers (such as here in New Zealand), which just adds to the confusion. I see some uses of wwoof as a noun for the activity, (e.g. "wwoof hosts") undoubtedly derived from WWOOF (i.e. genericization of the organization's name), and I think that's where some authors introduce the "willing" word, in order to make the acronym make sense. What I have not seen is any use of "woof" as a noun to refer to the activity, but it probably exists somewhere. Kiwima (talk) 00:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

RFV-passed verb, RFV-failed noun This, that and the other (talk) 07:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)