Download Onomatopoeia- Creating the Blog
(Sound file: All words spoken in this blog have onomatopoetic applications. Everything else are the sounds of production! Typing, dictionary page flipping, pens clicking, and drafting! )
Onomatopoeia- a word that most English lovers have learned to appreciate in their study of poetry. It refers to words that imitate a sound, such as buzz, hiss, and pop. Does this mean that onomatopoeia is also a sound? If so, what sound does it itself imitate?
I ask this question after considering the word's origin. Derived from Greek onomatopoiia, which discusses the naming of things by poets; onoma being name, and poeia being poet. When we name something, do we consider the sound it makes? Do names incorporate some essential quality about its object?
Certainly, onomatopoeia has more vowels than any one word should be allowed (in fact, the only vowel that is missing is the letter "u"). Vowels are created by formants, which are certain peaks in the human hearing that allows us to understand and distinguish between different words (for example, cat and cut. The "a" and the "u" resonate at different frequencies).
As a result of its spelling, onomatopoeia is hard on the mouth in terms of prononuciation. The end result of its repetition results in what ties back to my previous word, dithering: an endless stream of noise. Perhaps the poets had a cynical view of their own work when they created a word that means to imitate sound. In doing so, they created one of the more obnoxious terms to correspond with their endless chatter.
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