Oi (interjection)

Common card · No. 291508

Oi () is an interjection used in various [[List of dialects of English |varieties]] of the English language, particularly Australian, British, Indian, Irish, New Zealand, and South African, as well as non-English languages such as Chinese, Tagalog, Tamil, Hindi/Urdu, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese to get the attention of another person or to express surprise or disapproval. It is sometimes used in Canadian English and very rarely in American English. The word is also common in the Indian subcontinent, where it has varied pronunciations of "O-ee" and "O-ye". "Oi" has been particularly associated with working class and Cockney speech. It is effectively a local pronunciation of "hoy" (see H-dropping), an older expression. A study of the Cockney dialect in the 1950s found that whether it was being used to call attention or as a challenge depended on its tone and abruptness. The study's author noted that the expression is "jaunty and self-assertive" as well as "intensely cockney...

Read on Wikipedia