Onomatopoeia An onomatopoeia , from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία;
ὄνομα for "name" and ποιέω for "I make", adjectival form: "onomatopoeic"
or "onomatopoetic") is a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source
of the sound that it describes.
Onomatopoeia refers to the property of such words.
Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "meow", "roar"
or "chirp".
Onomatopoeias are not the same across all languages; they conform to some extent to
the broader linguistic system they are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be tick
tock in English, dī dā in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese.
Although in the English language the term onomatopoeia means the imitation of a sound,
in the Greek language the compound word onomatopoeia (ονοματοποιία) means "making or
creating names".
For words that imitate sounds the term Ηχομιμητικό (echomimetico or echomimetic) is used.
Ηχομιμητικό (echomimetico) from Ηχώ meaning "echo or sound" and μιμητικό
meaning "mimetic or imitation".
Uses of onomatopoeia In the case of a frog croaking, the spelling
may vary because different frog species around the world make different sounds: Ancient Greek
brekekekex koax koax (only in Aristophanes' comic play The Frogs) for probably marsh frogs;
English ribbit for species of frog found in North America; English verb "croak" for the
common frog.
Some other very common English-language examples include hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, moo, and
splash.
Machines and their sounds are also often described with onomatopoeia, as in honk or beep-beep
for the horn of an automobile, and vroom or brum for the engine.
When someone speaks of a mishap involving an audible arcing of electricity, the word
"zap" is often used (and has subsequently been expanded and used to describe non-auditory
effects generally connoting the same sort of localized but thorough interference or
destruction similar to that produced in short-circuit sparking).
For animal sounds, words like quack (duck), moo (cow), bark or woof (dog), roar (lion),
meow/miaow or purr (cat), cluck (chicken) and baa (sheep) are typically used in English.
Some of these words are used both as nouns and as verbs.
Some languages flexibly integrate onomatopoeic words into their structure.
This may evolve into a new word, up to the point that it is no longer recognized as onomatopoeia.
One example is English "bleat" for the sheep noise: in medieval times it was pronounced
approximately as "blairt" (but without an R-component), or "blet" with the vowel drawled,
which is much more accurate as onomatopoeia than the modern pronunciation.
An example of the opposite case is "cuckoo", which, due to continuous familiarity with
the bird noise down the centuries, has kept approximately the same pronunciation as in
Anglo-Saxon times and its vowels have not changed as they have in the word "furrow".
Verba dicendi are a method of integrating onomatopoeia and ideophones into grammar.
Sometimes things are named from the sounds they make.
In English, for example, there is the universal fastener which is named for the onomatopoeic
of the sound it makes: the zip (in the UK) or zipper (in the U.S.).
Many birds are named after their calls, such as the Bobwhite quail, the Weero, the Morepork,
the killdeer, chickadee, the cuckoo, the chiffchaff, the whooping crane and the whip-poor-will.
In Tamil and Malayalam, the word for crow is kaakaa.
This practice is especially common in certain languages such as Māori and, therefore, in
names of animals borrowed from these languages.
Cross-cultural differences Although a particular sound is heard similarly
by people of different cultures, it is often expressed through the use of different consonant
strings in different languages.
For example, the "snip" of a pair of scissors is su-su in Chinese, cri-cri in Italian, riqui-riqui
in Spanish, terre-terre or treque-treque in Portuguese, krits-krits in modern Greek and
katr-katr in Hindi.
Similarly, the "honk" of a car's horn is ba-ba in Chinese, tut-tut in French, pu-pu in Japanese,
bbang-bbang in Korean, baert-baert in Norwegian, fom-fom in Portuguese and bim-bim in Vietnamese.
Onomatopoeic effect without onomatopoeia words Onomatopoeic effect can also be produced in
a phrase or word string with the help of alliteration and consonance alone, without using any onomatopoeic
words.
The most famous example is the phrase "furrow followed free" in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
It may be noted that the words "followed" and "free" are not onomatopoeic in themselves,
but in conjunction with "forrow", they reproduce the sound of ripples following in the wake
of a speeding ship.
Similarly, alliteration has been used in the line "as the surf surged up the sun swept
shore...", to recreate the sound of breaking waves, in the poem "I, She and the Sea".
Comics and advertising Comic strips and comic books made extensive
use of onomatopoeia.
Popular culture historian Tim DeForest noted the impact of writer-artist Roy Crane (1901–1977),
the creator of Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer: In 2002, DC Comics introduced a villain named
Onomatopoeia, an athlete, martial artist and weapons expert who often speaks sounds.
Advertising uses onomatopoeia as a mnemonic, so consumers will remember their products,
as in Alka-Seltzer's "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.
Oh, what a relief it is!"
jingle, recorded in two different versions (big band and rock) by Sammy Davis, Jr.
Rice Krispies (US and UK) and Rice Bubbles (AU) make a "snap, crackle, pop" when one
pours on milk.
During the 1930s, the illustrator Vernon Grant developed Snap, Crackle and Pop as gnome-like
mascots for the Kellogg Company.
Sounds surface in road safety advertisements: "clunk click, every trip" (click the seatbelt
on after clunking the car door closed; UK campaign) or "click, clack, front and back"
(click, clack of connecting the seatbelts; AU campaign) or "click it or ticket" (click
of the connecting seatbelt; US DOT campaign).
Manner imitation In many of the world's languages, onomatopoeia-like
words are used to describe phenomena apart from the purely auditive.
Japanese often utilizes such words to describe feelings or figurative expressions about objects
or concepts.
For instance, Japanese barabara is used to reflect an object's state of disarray or separation,
and shiiin is the onomatopoetic form of absolute silence (used at the time an English speaker
might expect to hear the sound of crickets chirping or a pin dropping in a silent room,
or someone coughing).
It is used in English as well with terms like bling, which describes the glinting of light
on things like gold, chrome or precious stones.
In Japanese, kirakira is used for glittery things.
Examples in media James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) coined the onomatopoeic
tattarrattat for a knock on the door.
It is listed as the longest palindromic word in The Oxford English Dictionary.
Whaam!
(1963) by Roy Lichtenstein is an early example of pop art, featuring a reproduction of comic
book art that depicts a fighter aircraft striking another with rockets with dazzling red and
yellow explosions.
Marvel Comics has trademarked two words of their own invention: thwip!, the sound of
Spider-Man's web shooter, and snikt!
the switchblade-sound of Wolverine's claws coming out of his hands.
In the Garfield comic strip and television series, there is a running gag about a "splut,"
which is usually the sound of a pie hitting someone in the face.
In the 1960s TV series Batman, comic book style onomatopoeias such as wham!, pow!, "biff!",
crunch and "zounds" appear onscreen during fight scenes.
This is often the subject of parody, for example in the Simpsons episode "Radioactive Man"
where the onomatopoeic words are replaced with snuh!, newt! and mint! which are references
to other Simpsons episodes.
Ubisoft's XIII employed the use of comic book onomatopoeias such as bam!, boom and noooo!
during gameplay for gunshots, explosions and kills, respectively.
The comic-book style is apparent throughout the game and is a core theme, and the game
is an adaptation of a comic book of the same name.
In book 4 of Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels, the name of the Houyhnhnms is an
onomatopoeia for the whinny of a horse.
The chorus of American popular song writer John Prine's song "Onomatopoeia" cleverly
incorporates onomatopoeic words (though as discussed, 'ouch!' is not the sound of pain):
"Bang!
went the pistol.
| Crash!
went the window.
| Ouch!
went the son of a gun.
| Onomatopoeia | I don't wanna see ya | Speaking in a foreign tongue."
A well-known rhetorical question is "Why doesn't onomatopoeia sound like what it is?".
Iain M. Banks references this in his novel Against a Dark Background, when a character
claims that the word onomatopoeia is spelled "just the way it sounds!".
The marble game KerPlunk is an onomatopoeia for the sound of the marbles dropping when
one too many sticks has been removed.
The Nickelodeon cartoon Kablam is implied to be onomotapoeic to a crash.
In a 2002 episode of The West Wing, Rob Lowe (Sam Seaborn) and Ian McShane (portraying
a Russian negotiator) have a conversation about how the word 'frumpy' "onomatopoetically
sounds right".
Each episode of the TV series Harper's Island was given an onomatopoeic name which imitates
the sound made in that episode when a character dies.
For example, in the episode titled "Bang" a character is shot and fatally wounded, with
the "Bang" mimicking the sound of the gunshot.
In The Transformers, the Autobot Warpath spoke with onomatopoeia in his speech, which included
"Wham", "Bang", "Blam", "Whack", "Woosh", "Bam", "Zoom", "Zap", "Boom", "Wow", "Clang",
"Pow", and "Boing" among others.