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Is It O Or Oh?

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cupid04 | 11:54 Fri 05th Sep 2014 | Word Origins
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Mostly used in poetry and hymns etc.
Is there a ruling for which one or can you use either?
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O is used when addressing someone. Oh is an exclamation so the two are not interchangeable.
11:59 Fri 05th Sep 2014
Oh !
Большое спасибо Obiter
Ничего!

(which means, 'don't mention it') as I do not wish to post anything not understood by other readers).
If I may say it you are a useful person on this site Orbiter. Cant believe you have only been here for 3 weeks. Glad you found us.
Actually, I do have a degree in Russian, though it is many years since I have actively used it.
I am very impressed. I use it to talk to russians who visit our company but am not much good. They bring me my favourite drink of Kvac (and once Kremlin Vodka!)
sorry cupid to chat on your O Oh thread.
Kvass? Had a few of them off the back of a lorry in the 70s. Made from distilled rye bread and it would take you a fair few pints to feel even the slightest effect. The beauty of being a foreigner in the USSR in those days was that you could go into specialised shops reserved for hard currency and buy vodka at a tenth of the price the natives had to pay.
Obiter's post set my mind wandering. Two favourite Os. Firstly Madame Roland's famous "O Liberte, que de crimes on commet on ton nom". Secondly the wonderful Robert Hardy's Latin master explaining the declension of the noun mensa to a bemused young Churchill (in the superb film of that name): "Mensa with a long A , Churchill. Vocative, as in addressing a table : "O, table!".
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Chat away...x
I'm wandering. Time for my afternoon nap.
Vet is right. 'O' derives from the Latin, as the vocative case could not be used without the prefix 'O'.
I have latin O level which helped very much with learning Italian (when I met my husband) and understanding about cases helps with the Russian studies.
I couldn't have put it better myself, Carp.

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