Man it has been a long time - I nearly forgot the password to this blog. Shocking. Consider my knuckles rapped and back in the game…
So I was going through my normal routine of choosing some songs for this coming Sunday at Kings and as I was perusing a list of songs something jumped out at me. There are quite a few songs that start with the word ‘Oh’ - Oh Happy Day or Oh Lord I am devoted to you for example, but then there are also quite a few songs that start with the word ‘O’. Hmmm I thought, perhaps the ‘O’ should be an ‘Oh’ and I just typed the song title in wrongly. But no, if you google for example Matt Redman’s O Sacred King or the traditional O Lord my God when I in awesome wonder (How great thou art), you’ll see it is definitely an ‘O’.
Now I am no English scholar, I think the apostrophe looks pretty and should be used wherever possible. But what is the difference between ‘O’ and ‘Oh’? Is this some deep dark secret about the English language that I’ve missed?? More to the point should I be using more ‘O’ing in my songs? Deep theological questions…
Perhaps I should email Redman and ask him why he used an ‘O’ instead of an ‘Oh’. To be honest, when I look at the lyrics of songs that use either I have to wonder why the word is there at all - I mean, it doesn’t really mean much or add much to the line - apart from make it fall under the meter a little better. Anyhow - it is all good - but if anyone out there has any hard and fast rules about when to use ‘O’ and when to use ‘Oh’ I’d certainly like to hear it 
Anyway, this brings me on to my next topic of my new song: ‘Oooooooooooooo Lord you are a legend’. What a catchy title. More about this soon…..
2:19 pm
Gareth, you always were one for getting the fine detail right! And I’m sure that this issue will severely hamper any further song-writing until you get it settled in your mind. Sadly, I’m not an expert of the English language (nor anything else come to that) but I felt compelled to do a little bit of research on your behalf in order to put you out of your current turmoil.
It would appear that the use of ‘O’ or ‘Oh’ is quite interchangeable and the difference is fairly subtle. The Oxford Dictionary actually says that ‘O’ is a variance of ‘Oh’ and is a Middle English (a form of the English language spoken between 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century) phrase that it is prefixed to a name in the vocative – in other words a respectful way of addressing someone like God or a king. About ‘Oh’ it says that it’s used to express surprise (eg ‘oh boy!’), pain (eg ‘oh no!’), excitement (eg ‘oh yes!’) or resignation (eg ‘oh well!’). However, it also suggests that ‘O’ could be used instead so there doesn’t appear to be a clearly defined rule.
Looking at the use of these words in the Bible is quite interesting. There’s plenty of examples of ‘O’ used immediately before the word ‘God’ or ‘Lord’ (see for example Psalms 69 to 71) whereas I can’t find any examples of the word ‘Oh’ being used in the same way. But then ‘O’ is also used in other contexts too: ‘O faithless and perverse generation’ (Mat 17:17) or ‘O foolish Galatians!..’ (Gal 3:1).
‘Oh’ is used in a wide variety of passages: ‘Oh, these people have committed a great sin…’ (Gen 32:32), ‘Oh that they were wise…’ (Deut 32:29), ‘Oh that my grief…’ (Job 6:2) or ‘Oh the depth of the riches…’ (Rom 11:33). Generally it appears to be used a lot in the context of giving emphasis to something, voicing a sense of disappointment that things aren’t different or expressing despair about a situation.
I think my suggestion would be that if that you’re going to use these words in a song, then follow the Biblical pattern – i.e. to use ‘O’ when it comes before the name of God and use ‘Oh’ for any other phrase if it’s appropriate. Or just ignore them altogether! Happy song-writing Gareth…