Onomatopoeia!

[Alex Bragi]

Recently my friend, Curtis, mentioned a word I hadn’t heard before – onomatopoeia. Actually he often does that, but this one is really intriguing to me.

For those as ignorant as me, they are words that sound like what they describe. E.g. Wizz, wack, and whip.

I thought it might be interesting to post a few here, particularly non-English words. For instance, I’m not sure how correct it is, but I was once told the word for a rain drop in Japanese is ‘ping’.

Have great day,
Alex.

[Spitman]

I always liked:

Quadropedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum

Which means something like, the horses galloped across the plain (stress the bold letters). When you read it, it seems as if you can actually hear the horses.

[Fox]

Personally I've always been fascinated by the use of negative prefixes and the subsequent word if removed ... for example:

disgruntled and ... gruntled

And my suggested word for the day ...

fructify

[Lord Douche]

Progress and Congress?

And of course there's mans' best friend, the dog...

Woof Woof. And in Germany, it's Wau Wau

Hopefully we'll find some words to "fructify" your writing

LD

[slavelucy]

Originally posted by Alex Bragi
Recently my friend, Curtis, mentioned a word I hadn’t heard before – onomatopoeia.

Ah yes, good old onomatopoeia...*sigh*...takes me back to my 'A' level English days........a 'hiss' of pain, the 'splash' of tears...er, oops, no, that's my D/s days, sorry, i'm getting all confused!!

And then of course there's alliteration, good old Keats and his 'silver, snarling trumpets'.

luce

[drake7]

Onomatopoeia can in my opinion really add something to a story.

The verbal description, "He slapped her ass again and again as the tears ran down her face" isn't nearly as powerful as "The loud smack of his hand as it landed on her ass again and again drown out the soft spattering noise of her tears falling onto the floor." The sentences are not exactly equal but they are pretty close, and with the addition of the "smack" and "spattering" I really get more of a feel for what the story is trying to convey.

Drake.

[Curtis]

I love the word "onomatopoeia"; doesn't it sound like something little children would taunt you by saying? I have to wonder if there's a point at which onomatopoeia shades over into sound effects. As Alex mentioned a couple of days ago, words like "biff", "bam" and "pow" are more or less comic book sound effects.

"sizzle", drake's "slap" and "spatter" (or "splatter"), "cough", Lord Douche's "wau wau" (for a big dog) and "woof woof" (for a middling dog), or "yappy" (for a, well, yappy little imitation dog) are perhaps better example of the type. "meow" and "mew" are maybe more like sound effects.

And what about words like "whistle"? It doesn't sound like a whistle, but you have to purse your lips into a whistling shape in order to say it. And think of the way your larynx rumbles and vibrates when you say "fog horn", or how you have to open your mouth wide to say "cry" or "scream". "screech" actually sounds like a screech, so it would be a legitimate onomatopoeia.

And as for the magical disappearing Fox, I have one word for you: inflammable. (If you remove the prefix, the meaning changes not one iota.)
I had to look up "fructify", which turns out to mean exactly what it looks like it means.
You've reminded me of a skit that Flip Wilson used to do, in his guise as Geraldine Jones. She's working the complaint desk at a department store; a customer approaches and announces that she's disgruntled. Geraldine's response: "It is not my job to gruntle you. If you want to be gruntled, then you should go home."

[Alex Bragi]

And as for the magical disappearing Fox, I have one word for you: inflammable. (If you remove the prefix, the meaning changes not one iota.)

There's word for those words isn't there, Curits?

Hey and what about burning up and burning down, filling in and filling out?

[drake7]

The sound of a word can also effect the way people interpret a word totally separate from onomatopoeia.

I was also talking to Curtis when he used the word "denizen." If you look up the word in the dictionary it is pretty harmless, it simply means inhabitants of an area. Say it aloud to yourself, or even read it in a sentence, and it carries a sinister feel to it.

So even though not onomatopoetic many words carry a personality separate from their meaning but related to the way they sound or appear when written.

I can't think of a word that fits this category other than "denizen" but if anyone else can post it here that it will be manifest before us. Hmm... perhaps manifest might fit in there.

Drake.

[boccaccio2000g]

Originally posted by drake7
The sound of a word can also effect the way people interpret a word totally separate from onomatopoeia.

I was also talking to Curtis when he used the word "denizen." If you look up the word in the dictionary it is pretty harmless, it simply means inhabitants of an area. Say it aloud to yourself, or even read it in a sentence, and it carries a sinister feel to it.


Drake.

Dictionaries are always a few years behind current usage; those who write them want to make sure that a certain sense of a word isn't transitory. Is the expression "the bomb" still current? As in "he's the bomb?" That's an example of a usage that will probably not last. On the other hand 'cool', and maybe 'funky' are expressions that look like they may remain in the language indefinitely.

"Minion" and "henchmen" are a couple of words like 'denizen', I think -- one thinks of villains having 'henchmen', but the word, according to the dictionary, means 'attendant', which is innocuous enough.

This tendency to 'color' certain words is thousands of years old. The Romans used the word 'sinister' to refer to a left-handed person and 'dexter' to a right-handed person. Since lefties were rare, hence suspicious, each of those words came to have an extra connotation. Nowadays a 'sinister' person is threatening, while a person with 'dexterity' is talented.

Boccaccio

[Curtis]

I like all of those examples, but as an RPGer from the 70s I'm accustomed to a more benign interpretation of 'henchman'.
In a roleplaying game henchmen and hirelings are just npcs (non-player characters) who act as the main characters' gofers and, in the case of henchmen, occasional stand-ins. ("Henchman! Take care of my light work!")
Basically, to a guy like me, a henchman is just a guy who henches for you, and there's nothing wrong with that!

[Alex Bragi]

Drake 7,

The sound of a word can also effect the way people interpret a word totally separate from onomatopoeia.

Oh, for sure, not to mention the time and place a word is used. I mean if I’m driving down the freeway and some guy leans out of his car and calls me a ‘bitch’ there’s not doubt in my mind what he means. On the other hand, late at night in the heat of passion, the very same word will have completely different meaning and effect on me.


And what about the way it’s said?

Like “please’, by putting the emphasis on different parts of the word, it can have a whole new meaning. I mean:

Pulleez – give me a break that is just so ridiculous.
Please? - May I?
Please! - You’re forgetting your manners.
Or pleeze - pretty with a cherry on top! I’m begging you! (Your favorite too I bet.)



Hi boccaccio2000g,

Mind if I shorten that to bocca in future?

How about ‘cute’. I say use that word when I want to express that something is little and/or appealing. My dictionary, however, says it’s something “ugly but interesting’

Interesting huh?

Alex.

[cariad]

vroom roar screech
whew! pitter patter clunk
tripped ouf! ow! thump
squelsh slither squeal
WALL wham crunch bang bonk

I heard this being read to a group of children who were then asked to describe what had happened.

cariad

[ElectricBadger]

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Bells," to me the best work of onomatopoeia ever created (read it aloud and listen to the sounds of the words)


I

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.


II

Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!


III

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!


IV

Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

[Ozme52]

a lot of animal sounds are examples of onomatopoiea.

oink, quack, cluck.

Cock-a-doodle-doo in English

[anonymouse]

a lot of animal sounds are examples of onomatopoiea.

oink, quack, cluck.

Cock-a-doodle-doo in English

I read somewhere just recently that the reason for this is largely because children (infants) first learn to speak through imitating animal sounds. This is evident in nursery rhymes, such as 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'.

anonymouse