whoop and a holler, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whoop and a holler n.

[SE whoop + holler, both meaning shout, and so the distance such cries would carry]

1. (US) a short distance; also two whoops and a holler.

[1672		Marvell Rehearsal Transpos’d I 62: Before a full Pot of Ale you can swallow, / Was here with a Whoop and gone with a Hollow].
1815		W. Scott letter 19 Jan. in Lockhart Life (1896) 306/2: We are much nearer neighbours, and within a whoop and a holla.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 235: ‘Two whoops and a holler’ meant a short distance.
1950		Boston Globe 14 May (Comics) 2: ’Tain’t but a whoop and a holler after we round the bend! [DA].
1964		J. Thompson Pop. 1280 in Four Novels (1983) 381: On the river bank, just a whoop and a holler from town.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1953

T. Runyon In For Life 14: We lived almost within whoop-and-holler distance of the Hatfield-McCoy trouble.