Say What?

As a writer I may not always mean what I say, but I'd darned well better say what I what I mean! In order to do so, I rely on words to say what they mean.

When they don't, I get in a snit, which is what I'm in right now. The word that put me here has no synonym, is impossible to spell, ridiculous to pronounce, and means - words that sound like what they describe.

Yes,friends, I'm talking about onomatopoeia.

I suppose if I were an ancient Greek I'd say, "So what's yer problem? Da woid couldn't be more clear."

To an ancient Greek, I'm sure that's true. But what about the rest of us?

We can snicker at the irony of using onomatopoeia to mean, "...the use of words whose sounds suggest the sense...," but when we're done laughing we need to get serious. Words like buzz, whisper, babble, smooth, are an important part of creative writing; it's essential to have a word that defines them. Surely we can do better than onomatopoeia.

I'm not suggesting we lose the word, let's just change the spelling to something more contemporary like, wordsthatsoundlikewhattheymean. It would still look imposing and be difficult to spell but, when spoken aloud, its meaning would be instantly understood.

You think I'm going on about nothing? Next time you're at a dinner party with your learned friends, casually drop onomatopoeia into the conversation and see what happens.

I'm sure there will be some smarty pants who knows what it means. Ask that person to spell it. If they can, then they are probably an ancient Greek. Because I'm here to tell you, ain't nobody else gonna know what that word's tryin' to say!