Open Writing

Jackie Kennedy once said “One thing I do not want to be called is First Lady. It sounds like a saddle horse.” While I’m not sure about the equine comparison, I do agree that some words have especially evocative sounds for some people. For instance, the flesh of my wife and daughters can be made to creep by uttering the word “dollop.”

Onomatopoeia, defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “the formation of use of words such as ‘buzz’ or ‘murmur’ that imitate sounds associated with the objects of actions they refer to,” is an ancient concept. The classical Greeks called it “onomatopoeia, from onomatopoios, ‘coiner of names’.”

Loads of onomatopoeic examples can be found at writtensound.com “Gecko,” for example, comes from a “Malay word ‘gekog,’ imitative of its call,” and a link to hear it is attached. The site has all sorts of categories, such as “Liquid” (“burble,” “pitter-patter,” “koink” and “splut”) and “Laughter” (“bwahaha,” “chortle,” and “hyuk”).

“Animals” is one of the larger groupings, but like the rest of a WrittenSound.com, it’s English-centric, with only our versions of sounds of monkeys, cows, and cats. For more international diversity Google “Derek Abbott’s Animal Noise Page.” There you’ll find that where our cats purr, in France they “ronron,” in Hungary they “doromb,” and Japanese cats “guro-guro.” The Japanese sometimes combine words that are interesting to Westerners. For example, there’s “Beer Choco” (beer-flavored chocolate), “Creap” (powdered coffee creamer), and “Ethnican chips” (barbeque potato chips). Don’t forget “Baked Chunk” (cashew cookies), “Pocari Sweat” (energy drink), and “Deep Sea Water” (deep sea water). “Watering Kiss Mint,” a chewing gum that comes in strange flavors, is my favorite and one I’ve actually taste-tested. One’s mouth does water, but the kisses aren’t guaranteed.

The AHD says “sound” itself is an interesting term with meanings beyond those relating to “vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing.” Sound also means “free from defect,” “a long, relatively wide body of water, larger than a strait or a channel, connecting larger bodies of water,” and “to measure the depth of.” The “noise” version dates back to the Proto Indo-European “swonos.” The “uninjured” version comes from the Old English “gesund,” and the “narrow channel of water” is from Old Norwegian “sund.”

Getting back to purring, the July 14 issue of “Current Biology” describes an English study of cat purrs. Apparently there are two types of purrs: the “I’m happy” sort, and the “Feed Me” kind. The University of Sussex researchers found that “domestic cats make subtle use of one of their most characteristic vocalizations – purring – to solicit food from the human hosts, apparently exploiting sensory biases that humans have for providing care.” We’re wired to respond to mewling newborn children, and some house cats learn to include a higher-pitched tone in this special “solicitation purr” to take advantage of us.

Speaking of taking advantage, have you opened a Listen Alaska account? Listen Alaska is a collection of digital books and music created by public libraries across Alaska pooling resources. Find the ListenAlaska icon on the library webpage (http://library.fnsb.lib.ak.us) where thousands of novels and nonfiction bestsellers are available for downloading to your computer, and from there to CDs or your iPOD or similar device. There’s no charge, but it does require downloading the Listen Alaska software to setup your computer to receive the transmissions. The audio book’s narrators are among the best, and there’s no denying that hearing well-told books is very different from reading them. Many people find being read to be pleasurable, but not everyone.

We come from cultures that are fundamentally oral, but sound can affect people in different ways. “All the sounds of the earth are like music,” according to composer Oscar Hammerstein. However, he never met Dallas Cowboy tight end Martellus Bennett’s training camp roommate whose snoring was described by the irrepressible Bennett as sounding like “a fat kid laying on top of a grizzly bear hibernating in the summer under water.” But I agree with French essayist Jean de La Bruyere: “The sweetest sound of all sounds is that of the woman we love.”