Edmond’s discussion of the phonaesthetics of these words addresses
part of Scott’s question. The larger class of ideophones, which
includes the examples discussed so far, doesn’t concern itself with the
origins of the words. And they are varied. Carroll was undoubtedly
playing with the name of the knife, itself ideophonic. Willy-nilly comes
from Latin vole-nole “will-won’t”. Hurdy-gurdy is
purely onomatopoeic. Another Carroll coinage, chortle, is an onomatopoeic
blend of chuckle and snort.
Herb
Listmates,
One interpretation of the sound "snicker-snack" is
that it is the sound a snicker-snee (a large knife) makes. Would this
change the interpretation of the term?
Scott Woods
On Nov 25, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Kathi Bethell wrote:
The question of onomotopoeia came up in a class discussion this past week. A student questioned the form class of "Snicker-snack" (as in "the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!"). We moved on to animal sounds, comic book sound effects (Pow! Zap! Kerplunk!) and thoroughly amused and confused ourselves.
The cow says "moo."
The mooing cows moved toward the barn.
The cow smiled mooily (okay, we were goofing off by then).
It's easy to identify the verbs, adjectives, adverbs - but what are the onomotopoetic words themselves? Although moo can be a noun (the cow had a loud moo), what is snicker-snack?
Kathleen Bethell
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