onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 10:33 AM

This reminds me of a discussion I had in a schoolyard when I was 12 about whether tits were about the nipples on the breasts, or the whole breast. We decided that because of the sound, they had to be about the pointy part. It was a fine discussion, ranging far and wide over many related topics of interest, somewhat like Mudcat threads, and similarly fully occupied our attention.
Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 09:42 AM

For onomatopoeic animal sounds, check:

http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/animals/animals.html

Someday I hope to have the time to learn to make a blue clicky thing.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: danl
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 08:58 AM

erm... i think i meant murmur... or is it murmmer..or murmer... oh god, i wish i could SPELL! damn damn damn

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: danl
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 08:55 AM

mmm...mummer would have to be my favorate.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 08:34 AM

I gotta' go with Billy Connelly's word for masturbation. It sounds like the cheap bedsprings in an army barracks or camp when someone is laying there whipping the bishop.......WANK, as in "having a wank"......very onomatopoetic.

catspaw

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 07:54 AM

Peng is German for bang, according to Monty Python, and a crêche is a car smash in Solihull (where Brummies talk posh, if you didn't know). That second example isn't strictly onomatopoeia (unless Volvos and Rovers make a different noise from Skodas and VWs!). Are there any more cross-lingual sounds out there?

Steve

Just remembered: miaou is French for miaow.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 07:47 AM

I always thought 'pernickity' sounded like an over-attentive maiden aunt.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: alison
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 07:20 AM

Hi,

We played buzz in Belfast too...... I think we added ping for different multiples to make it more difficult.

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 07:13 AM

zing (cousin to whizz, I think).

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Tom on Comfort
Date: 16 Jun 99 - 02:11 AM

That sounds like the Buzz we used to play in Chicago, except we used 7, multiples of 7, and numbers that added up to 7. In a circle, the order would change every time someone would come upon a Buzz number. And, of course, you would get pretty buzzed.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: campfire
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 09:39 PM

Bert, we played "Fizz-Buzz" - including once on a college (Easter Break) bus trip from Milwaukee, WI to Daytona Beach, FL - with beer provided. Somewhere around Tennessee there was probably more Whizzing than Fizzing, if you catch my drift, but lots of buzzes, anyway.

campfire

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: The Shambles
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 08:05 PM

There is a word I have only ever heard used in Shetland and it is used to discribe the sound a fuel can makes, when you pick it and shake it to see if it is empty. ... You give it a 'swittle'.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From:
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 06:20 PM

The word "wolf" is probably onomatopoeic; choo-choo certainly is--as is one of the Japanese words for train: kishaa. --seed

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: MichaelM
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 05:54 PM

Ivy, I wonder if your "soldier's tread" is an example of synecdoche i.e. a figure of speech where a part is made to represent the whole, e.g. "a pair of hands flying over the strings". The hands suggest the player.

Michael

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 05:44 PM

Fizz-Buzz is a classroom game. You start counting around the class but if your number has a five in it either as a digit OR a factor you say Fizz instead of the number. The same with sevens only you say Buzz this time. So the first kid says 'one'
Next kid says 'two'
and it continues 3, 4, Fizz, 6, Buzz, 8, 9,Fizz-Fizz('cos 2 5s are 10), 11, 12, 13, Buzz-Buzz, Fizz-Fizz-Fizz, 16, Buzz, 18, 19 and so on.

Bert.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 05:16 PM

Bert--------the first one was enough...LMAO!!! Now your second post reminds me of the jacks type game you once tried to describe..........Y'all did some weird childhood games there Bert.

catspaw

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Les B
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 04:39 PM

Hiss !

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 04:32 PM

Y fronts are Jockey shorts.

Talking of onomatopoeia, did anyone play Fizz-Buzz when they were kids?

Bert. Crunch!

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 04:30 PM

My engineer husband used to use the term "titravate" (sp?) I always thought it sounded like something he would do with certain of my body parts in bed!

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: MMario
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 04:19 PM

tintintabulation was always a favorite

flush, whoosh, whiz,meow, woof, tweet,quack

MMario

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Margo
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 04:03 PM

tread, tromp, tramp, all somewhat onomatopoetic, don't you think?

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: danl
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 03:53 PM

funny you should mention this. im meant to be at this very moment writing up some poetry notes and although A.E.Housman is not known for his onomatopoeias the other poet we are studying Elizabeth Jennings uses them a lot. but houseman is all i have with me at the moment, so what about 'the streets sound to the soldiers' tread,'. though thats probably more the rhythem and illiteration isnt it... oh never mind.

ivy b*

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Margo
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 03:50 PM

Bert, that's too much. What do you mean by a Y front?

Margarita

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 03:47 PM

When I was in Iran they used to sell barbecued 'Donbalon' which are sheep's balls. I said to my boss that it was onomatopoeic because sheep don't wear Y fronts (I could imagine these sheep walking around makind the noise 'donbalon-balon-balon'). But by the time I had explained onomatopoeia the point was lost.

Bert. (Sorry)

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 03:43 PM

Ooomph!

Subject: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Margo
Date: 15 Jun 99 - 03:38 PM

Here's the definition:

on·o·mat·o·poe·ia (¼n"…-m²t"…-p"…, -mä"t…-) n. The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

I love language and am especially appreciative of colorful descriptions. Onomatopoeias are great, and I was wondering what your favorites are, in any language!

There are so many: splash, flop, bark, klunk, and good old plop (that's what I call fresh cow stuff)..........

Margarita