Dear SunWinkers:

Going through my old Gather columns, I next run into the topic of onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia is a word which sounds like the object (i.e. a sound or something noisy) it describes. They’re everywhere you look! Hundreds have become imbedded in the language, so much so we hardly hear them as such. Some examples of onomatopoeia words:

Chirp
Moo
Screech
Chug
Gulp
Belch
Clatter
Sputter
Caw
Clank
Pop
Snap
Crackle
Bark
Yip

The list is endless.

Onomatopoeia can be really fun if you invent the word (who can forget Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?), or apply the onomatopoeia to something unexpected. My early poem “Procrastination” makes much use of onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, and other techniques of poetic diction.

A few weeks ago, we mentioned one of the easier ways to coin a neologism (new word) is to imitate a sound:

And the bees weighted with pollen
Move heavily in the vine-shoots:
chirr—chirr—chir—rkk—a purring sound…

Ezra Pound “Canto XVII”

 He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry as he scuttled through the long grass, was: “Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!”

Rudyard Kipling “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”

Lewis Carroll is of course the past master of the nonce word (a word invented on the spot for a particular one-time purpose). Take, for example: uffish. Carroll explained the word as “a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.” It’s a classic illustration of the fact that onomatopoeia makes for good neologisms. In other words, if your new word sounds like what it refers to, that helps the reader understand what you mean.

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
“If only you’d spoken before!
It’s excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

            Lewis Carroll “The Hunting of the Snark”

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

            “Jabberwocky”

“Whiffling” and “burbled” need no explanation. “Tulgey” is defined in Wiktionary as “thick, dense, dark.” And it certainly sounds like that, doesn’t it?

Yea, each to each was worse than foe:
Thou, a scared dullard, gibbering low,
And she, an avalanche of woe!

            Lewis Carroll “The Three Voices”

“Gibbering” is a perfect example of a word formed, i.e. entering the language, by onomatopoeia. It’s related to the words “gibberish” and “jabber.” I seem to remember seeing “jibber-jabber” somewhere as well. Another common example of words entering the lexicon via onomatopoeia is that many bird names are coined by imitating their call: “whippoorwill,” “peewit,” “cuckoo,” “chickadee,” “bobwhite,” et al.

The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers…

            Theodore Roethke “Child on Top of a Greenhouse”

“Crackling” is a straightforward onomatopoeic word, but do yourself a solid and read the whole poem. Read it out loud. The diction and sonority of the entire piece is marvelously crackling and brittle.

Finally, here are a few more examples I dug up. Take a look at them and pick out the onomatopoeic words. Then pull out your own poetry collections and see how many you can find.

Nothing sings from these orange trees,
Rindless steel as smooth as sapling skin,
Except a crane’s brief wheeze
And all the muffled, clanking din
Of rivets nosing in like bees

            Burton Raffel “On Watching the Construction of a Skyscraper”

 A puff of dust, a screech, a squeak—
The king’s jaw opened with a creak.
And then in voice so faint and weak—
The first words that they heard him speak
Were, “How about a peanut-butter sandwich?”

            Shel Silverstein “Peanut Butter Sandwich”

The noises he was hiding from,
Though very much the noise which
He’d always hidden from before,
Seemed somehow less…Or was it more?

The trotting horse, the trumpet’s blast,
The whistling sword, the armour’s squeak,
These, and especially the last,
Had clattered by him all the week.
Was this the same, or was it not?
Something was different. But what?

            A.A. Milne “The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak”

Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on.
He went among the villagers and blipped them on the head.
On Wednesday and on Saturday, especially on the latter day,
He called on all the cottages and this is what he said:

“I am Sir Brian!” (ting–ling)
“I am Sir Brian!” (rat–tat)
“I am Sir Brian, as bold as a lion—
Take that!—and that—and that!”

Sir Brian had a pair of boots with great big spurs on,
A fighting pair of which he was particularly fond.
On Tuesday and on Friday, just to make the street look tidy,
He’d collect the passing villagers and kick them in the pond.

“I am Sir Brian!” (sper–lash)
“I am Sir Brian!” (sper–losh!)
“I am Sir Brian, as bold as a lion—
Is anyone else for a wash?”

A.A. Milne “Bad Sir Brian Botany”

 

The Prompt

Write a short-to-medium-length poem, or prose poem, or piece of flash fiction, or sketch, which uses onomatopoeia. Imitating animal noises and using well-known onomatopoeic words which are in the dictionary, these are just fine. For extra credit, make up your own word, and/or use onomatopoeia to describe something unexpected.

Alternate Prompt

Study the examples. Find more examples of onomatopoeia in your library or go to a site like http://poetryfoundation.org or http://poets.org and browse. Share some of the cooler onomatopoeias you find here in the comments.

Love,

Doug

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