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I'm not a native English speaker, so I don't know what to search for on Google and similar.

In chats I often read words like 'helloooo', or 'sureeee'. And as I understood it, it's meant to mimic the sound of the spoken prolonging of the word. But I always wonder why people don't write it like: 'suuuure' or 'heeello', as this at least is how it sounds to me.

Is it a personal matter of habit? And if so, why is it that most people seem to use the first form?

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    Welcome to Stack Exchange ValooFX! In case you haven't already seen it, I'd like to point out our sister site that is specifically meant for English Language Learners. Questions that are related to learning the language are probably better asked over there; your questions may be migrated to that site if they are not a good fit for here. Also, I'd like to explain that I've edited your post (lowercase "i" for the first person pronoun is too informal for this kind of website). Do you have any examples you've seen recently of people using this spelling pattern?
    – herisson
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 11:53
  • Thank you for your help. I found this part of StackExchange via google and thought it would be appropriate for this question. I will use your suggested site next time. And no, I don't have any examples at hand, as I mainly see these in chats, which are quite temporary by nature, so I just made up the two examples mentioned in the question.
    – Flavelius
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 12:03
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    Yes, with all due respect to Thakker, I believe there is also a phonological reason (read: linguistics). But maybe you're not interested in hearing that.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 13:26
  • As pronounced for effect on "Seinfeld" (a reasonably popular television program of the late twentieth century) it was more like "hellooooo" youtu.be/5aKniUjce4s
    – user662852
    Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 4:26
  • I'm sorry, I am interested in hearing a better explanation. I was under the impression that this question was going to be closed or moved. So I wanted to mark Thakker's answer as useful, as it confirmed what I believed to be the origin and in consequence too mundane (just a key held down) to discuss further.
    – Flavelius
    Commented Jan 6, 2016 at 16:56

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It's a matter of habit according to me. From what I know, while typing, people just continue pressing the last letter of the word to show the prolonged sound.

However in cases like an extended oh, people seem to go ooooooh mostly because when they say it, its a single word reply.

Again though, Ooohhhh is also common.

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  • Ok, that confirms what i thought would be the case. Thank you.
    – Flavelius
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 12:07

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