Editorial: The President says oh
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
There is some small speculation on the question whether President Roosevelt, saying “Oh: when a fourth-term resolution was presented to him, meant the expression to convey surprise, approval or dissatisfaction.
There are, of course, always the further possibilities that he intended the oh of depreciation, or the shrinking oh, or the wool-gathering oh which denotes that the speaker has not kept up with the conversation.
Possibly, also, the President intended to say “Oho,” and committed a typographical error. If he did, this would explain nothing at all, Oho being open to an equal number of interpretations. The best guess is that he meant exactly what he said, and that it was the noncommittal oh, the big round empty oh, the oh of the present non-indicative mood.