How many o's in 'ka-booom'?
Onomatopoeia isn鈥檛 over yet. Our language is full of words of imitative origin; that is, words whose sounds suggest their meaning. We speak of pigeons as 鈥渃ooing,鈥� for instance. That comes from the actual bird sound, which English-attuned ears conventionally hear as 鈥渃oo,鈥� and then we take that sound and modify it, for example, with the 鈥渋ng鈥� suffix. The pigeons, meanwhile, never say 鈥渃ooing.鈥� They just say 鈥渃oo.鈥�
But the quest for new written sound effects continues. A colleague has just invited my attention to a website called Written Sound (). Its tag line is 鈥淗ow to write the sound of things: imitative words (onomatopoeia) and words of imitative origin.鈥�
The site is a sort of Roget鈥檚 Thesaurus for writers of comic books, children鈥檚 books, and other genres. It shows how to represent, in the 26 letters that English gives us, the sounds of daily life or, perhaps more crucially for Written Sound鈥檚 target audience, the sounds of super-heroes throwing punches, crossing swords with baddies, or vanishing in a puff of smoke 鈥� poof?
Those who come up with these written sound effects are like the foley artists of the movies 鈥� the special-effects experts who come in after filming to add more sound to what has already been picked up by the sound crew. Foley artists make the sound of footfalls, say, sound even 鈥渕ore鈥� like footfalls.
I鈥檓 a little surprised that English doesn鈥檛 have a more down-to-earth word for this verbal foley artistry than onomatopoeia, but it doesn鈥檛. It comes from Greek, as do many words having to do with language and rhetoric (rhetoric itself among them).
But onomatopoeia comes from words meaning simply 鈥渢he making of a name or word.鈥� The idea of imitation of a sound linked to the thing named evidently came later, but is now firmly attached to the word. That 鈥減oeia,鈥� by the way, is related to our words poem and poetry. A poet is, etymologically, someone who makes things. (Note to self: Remember this for Poetry Month.)
In my study of German, I like to collect words that are shorter than their English equivalents, and one from my collection is relevant here: Lautmalerei, literally 鈥渟ound painting.鈥� It鈥檚 two syllables shorter, and tucks in a metaphor of writer = painter besides.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, explosions figure large in Written Sound: Blam! Wham! Varoom! (As they do in the art of American painter Roy Lichtenstein. Each of these verbal bombs is the title of a work in his comic book-style oeuvre.)
Other categories: shooting weapons, metal, engines, and movement. Birds and animals, especially dogs and roosters, get a fair bit of space. And so many birds are named for their calls that the study of just bird names almost counts as an introduction to ornithology.
But not all the Lautmalerei on Written Sound is created equal. There鈥檚 something satisfying about a written sound effect that captures a sound perfectly. Skirl, for example, strikes me as an excellent transcription of the sound of bagpipes, especially if you pronounce it in your head with a Scottish 鈥渞.鈥�
As a critic, though, I would have to say that any written sound effect that is hard to 鈥済et鈥� unless you鈥檝e clicked through to the YouTube video that Written Sound provides as supporting evidence is not quite ready for prime time. On the other hand, I now understand why the cry that ferrets make when they鈥檙e happy is called 鈥渄ooking.鈥�
