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 |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Rick Fielding Date: 15 Jun 99 - 03:43 PM Ooomph! |
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: 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: 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 - 04:03 PM tread, tromp, tramp, all somewhat onomatopoetic, don't you think?
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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: 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: 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: Les B Date: 15 Jun 99 - 04:39 PM Hiss ! |
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Neil Lowe Date: 16 Jun 99 - 07:13 AM zing (cousin to whizz, I think).
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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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Roger the zimmer Date: 16 Jun 99 - 10:43 AM 'paw: & Howlin' Wolf "wang dang doodle"?? ;o) |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: katlaughing Date: 16 Jun 99 - 11:32 AM PeterT: that reminds me of what we used to call the brassieres our mothers wore in the 50's. They had concentric stitching all the way out to the point, were fairly stiff cotton and really made the breasts stick straight up and out, so.....we called them "torpedo tit bras"! (Why, oh why, does everything take on that phallic look/connotation?) katlaughing |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Llanfair Date: 16 Jun 99 - 12:00 PM In Germany, they call bras "bustenhalsters" Does that sound like onomatapaea? There is an interesting little book called "The Book of Liff", which contains some very creative descriptions. For example "NANTWICH The dampest thing in the fridge between two of the dryest things in the fridge....a popular late night snack" or DELAWARE..The hideous stuff on the shelves of a rented house. Hwyl, Bron. |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Steve Parkes Date: 16 Jun 99 - 12:26 PM Oh, Katl, how can breasts be phallic?! I don't know enough Greek to tell you the right word (some other smartarse will, though!), but I happen to know that sine (as in trigonometry) comes from the Sanskrit word for "bosom"*. Now there's an intersting word: both with singular and plural forms, and a collective noun as well. Bustenhalter is one of those words that give German a bad name. I realy must learn the language one of these days. Why call something a "bra" when you can call it a, well, a "bust halter"? Why say "tank" when you can say "armoured warfare vehicle"? And what other language has a word for an attempt on the life of the aunt of a Hottentot potentate**? And German onomatopoeia must be really something else, the way they spell! Steve
*Actually, I'm a leg man myself. |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Steve Parkes Date: 16 Jun 99 - 12:27 PM Damn! I got another |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Fadac Date: 16 Jun 99 - 12:49 PM I believe that the word for tank, in WWI German was (one word now) AVeachialThatGoesOverTheWireAndOverTheTenchWithA BigGunToKillTheEnemey. Whew! There may have been some sybles about making lots of noise too. There was a Lyza Menoly song about a "Tit Sling", Then there is the "Over the sholder boulder holder." Or the infamous "Double Barrall sling shot". In the early days of home computing my wife had a T shirt that said "Duel Flppies" Hmmmm The graphic showed the old (very) 8" flops.
Howcome in English, we drive on the parkway and park in the driveway? Of course we are upside down, our nose runs and our feet smell.
-Fadac |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: cleod Date: 16 Jun 99 - 12:55 PM Actually, 'pernickitie/pernickity' means cantankerous or touchy in scottish... 'Nyaa-nyaa' = Japanese for 'meow' and 'piyo-piyo' is their version of 'cheep-cheep' |
Subject: Lyr Add: ZE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (V Herbert, H Blossom From: MMario Date: 16 Jun 99 - 01:12 PM Thread creep! But at least it's a song; found out on the Levy Site when it still ran fast enough to see things... MMario
In England I haf stay here, it is a funny land |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: catspaw49 Date: 16 Jun 99 - 01:17 PM Steve, Let me explain about kat......well, that's impossible, but let me explain the phallic thing. Every now and again, male or female, we kitties go through certain times where our body chemistry takes over everything else. In my younger days I'd spend weeks on end prowling and howling and having the occasional shoe thrown at me. Our dear kat seems to be in one of these heated times where even a pancake takes on a phallic aura. I was very concerned when I heard that the Pony Express rider was missing in Wyoming, but happily kat was not involved. It'll pass. catspaw |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Shula Date: 16 Jun 99 - 08:02 PM Dear folks, To return to the point, "swittle"'s'wonderful! Surprised no one mentioned "boing." As for smartarse, how about the word "yonic" derived, so I'm told, from the Hindu(?) word "yoni," meaning "female genitalia," as an opposite descriptor to "phallic?" But I digress. Personal favourite ONOMATOPŒIA: "par-par." (transliterated Hebrew for "butterfly). Said with a Hebrew accent, the "r's" roll ever so softly, making a wee flutter like the wings of a butterfly. Has a sort of bi-lateral symmetry to boot. Now how about ONOMATOPŒIA in SONG? "The Marvelous Toy" comes to mind. Shalom, Shula |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: WyoWoman Date: 16 Jun 99 - 08:12 PM "A thing's a phallic symbol if it's longer than it's wide, And the Id goes marching on.... "Glory, glory psychotherapy, Glory, glory sexuality, Glory, glory, now we can be free, And the Id goes marching on...." (From a Melanie album back when the Earth was young and so was I, sung to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") Somewhere up there, someone said "piyo,piyo" is Japanese for the sound birds make. "Pio, pio" is the Spanish. Do only English-speaking birds go "cheep, cheep?" Have you heard about that terrible sickness going on now with the pet bird population? Yup, it's called Chirpes. ... It's a canarial disease. ... And it's very hard to tweet. Ok, ok. I'm leaving now. KC |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Max Date: 16 Jun 99 - 08:33 PM Hi Shula! How're ya doin? I just LOVE bilateral Symmetry KC, That's one of my favorite songs, I sing it a lot, even tho' I'm a guy Bert. |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Shula Date: 16 Jun 99 - 09:48 PM Dear Bert et al, Doin' remarkably well, "EK-chew-ly," thanks much for askin.' And as for BS (bilateral symmetry, what else?), not to "like" it would be positively anti-human...especially, one might suppose, for the male of the species. "The Marvelous Toy" is a long-time favourite with my guys and quite a few other children-of-indeterminate-age of our acquaintance, as well. We do it, as Joe O. can attest, complete with explosive sound effects. It was our son Joel's nightly request for three or four pre-school years , because the "noises" in "The MARBLE-ous Toy" made him giggle himself giddy. Another excellent children's song with "noises" is The Ugly Duckling" from "Hans Christian Andersen." Hope others will expand the discussion from these two titles into a proper list. Ever, Shula
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Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: LEJ Date: 16 Jun 99 - 09:51 PM McGwire strides to the plate, the dry ground crunches beneath his spikes. The crowd murmurs with anticipation, while the Announcer babbles into the microphone. McGwire taps home plate with the bat and assumes his stance- the pitcher winds up, and gives a snort as the ball leaves his hand. The high hanging slider hisses toward the catcher, but McGwire makes contact and the crack of the bat splits the air. Fireworks crackle as the ball sails out of the park, only to smash the windshield of a Chevy Suburban parked outside. Flashbulbs pop and the home crowd roars as Mac rounds the bases. In the distance a muffled thud is heard as Ruth's record hits the dust. |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Sandy Paton Date: 17 Jun 99 - 01:57 AM Playing "Dictionary" (sometimes called "Fictionary") one night with friends, someone came up with "cloop" from one of my old dictionaries. True definition turned out to be "the sound of a cork being extracted from a wine bottle." No one chose the correct definition, of course, because it sounded like a joke. Sandy |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: The_one_and_only_Dai Date: 17 Jun 99 - 04:14 AM Old English/Anglo Saxon - a cow is called a 'cuu', and a crow is a 'ca'. |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Theodore Alexiou Date: 17 Jun 99 - 04:54 AM Dear katlaughing "titravate" in Greek are two words "ti travate" and thye exact translation is "what do you pull" but we use it by the meaning of "you have a problem" or "is a bad situatuion" etc. Theodore |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Steve Parkes Date: 17 Jun 99 - 08:08 AM I don't think that's the meaning it would get where I come from! |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Penny S. Date: 17 Jun 99 - 08:35 AM I seem to remember being told that Waggawagga in Oz gets its name from the crows there. Penny |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Wolfgang Date: 17 Jun 99 - 09:14 AM just for the record, 'tank' in German is 'Panzer', not a very long word. There might have been a longer word when the tanks first arrived, but surely not nearly as long as fadac seems to think. But that's a rule in all languages: words tend to be shortened when they are used often, there is an inverse relationship between length of a word and frequency of usage. Just one example, both from English and German. 'Radio' in both languages was a much longer word when it was introduced. Or think of those broadside song titles like (I make it up): "A mournful story about the life and horrible death of the murderer..." which, if the song has survived at all, are known today under much shorter titles.
For Steve Parkes, and others: Wolfgang |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Fergus Date: 17 Jun 99 - 10:12 AM Of course, English has some potential for similar things: Hence words like 'antidisestablishmentarianism'. It's just that usually the compounds only have one 'standard' word combined with as many prefixes and suffixes as you like. But just stringing words together isn't too rare either - take 'goalkeeper', or 'coatmaker' or whatever. It's not such a standard thing as in German. I wonder if it's rarer in other languages? As for onomatopeia - let us not forget 'bubble' and 'globule'. And Schplutt.
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Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Wolfgang Date: 17 Jun 99 - 11:18 AM let's not forget 'mama' which resembles the first natural sucking sound (that's why mama in Latin stand for breast) and 'bahbah' which is the first natural sound of disgust. (I'm serious about the first part of the argument) Wolfgang |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Steve Parkes Date: 17 Jun 99 - 12:29 PM Hi Wolfgang, thanks for clarifying things! I hope you don't get the impression that I'm making fun of the German language, or the people who speak it ... well, maybe I am, but only gentle fun, and I can take it just as well as dish it out. If any offence was taken, I apologise - but don't get mad, get even! I actually got Hottentot.. from a guy called Fritz Spiegel, who was German before the war, but hurriedly became British just before it started. He's written a good many humorous books (in English!), including one called (if memory serves) "Funny peculiar and funny ha-ha". (Hottentot.. was in the introduction.) It comprised newspaper cuttings in the nature of "General flies back to front" (ha-ha) and "Folksinger killed by transvestite" (peculiar). Now French - there's a language where it's almost impossible not to sound pompous. We can say "the king of England's hat", which may be silly to a foreigner, but "the hat of the king of England", while unambiguous, sounds ... well, silly. Steve |
Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language From: Wotcha Date: 17 Jun 99 - 12:55 PM The German word for Owl is [sorry if the spelling is off] Uhu ( pronounced OO-h-oo). The American Indian word used by a tire dealership in Oklahoma: "Ugh" Cheers, Brian |
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