Huddling Round the Verbal Campfire
Right, this is important. This is your arbiter of ultimate truth demanding your attention... We are here to clear up some confusion some people have on the page and the screen with frequently used interjections, onomatopoeia, internet chat phrases and the like. Perhaps these things are a matter of opinion, but I do not Care.
Firstly, “Oh-oh!” is spelled “Uh-oh!” This should be obvious, given the broken phonetics of the first version.
“Hurray!” is spelled “Hooray!”, whilst “Hoorah!” is actually “Hurrah!”
These things make a difference. The latter, for instance, conveys the sheer medieval exuberance of the word brilliantly, whilst the misspelled version sounds more like an also-ran search engine.
“Hehe” is not a description of laughter in reaction to something you read on the Internet; it is an old man clearing his throat of accumulated tar.
“Leet” is complete gibberish.
“God damn it” and “goddamnit” are all very well, but “goddamn it” just looks more elegant, okay? And “Goddam it” is just wrong.
These are simple standards. Some, though, are worthy of debate. How, for instance, do you convey somebody throwing up in a word? Being sick is an experience that we all have experienced, but generally most of us hang our head over the bowl and quietly let the chunks be blown forth.
The only sound we can record is that of water hitting water and this is No Fun when it comes to the written word. Our vomiters must use their voices. And so “hurrgh!”, “raaaalph!”, “bleugh!”, “glaaaaarreerrrugh!” and “Good lord, this isn’t much fun, is it?” are some suggestions, but there must be more evocative renditions out there.
There was a scene in the first novel of the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf in which one of protagonist Dave Lister’s friends throws up in long, drawn-out and carefully documented style. This was fairly evocative but only truly came to life on the audiobook...a brain-squashing sound narrated impeccably by Spitting Image veteran Chris Barrie. He is, after all, a Professional...to paraphrase the late Hunter S Thompson, who is soon due to leave his last mark on this earth at a ceremony in which his ashes will be shot into the air from a cannon in the shape of a massive Gonzo two-thumbed fist. Really.
Expressions of written low-level disgust are also varied. Their function is to express the humble tut in a more precise way. Thus we have “pff”, “pshaw”, “huh”, “grr”, “tch” and, for the more advanced and subtle writer, “fff”. This last one is the sound of vague annoyance deflating into a shrug and has been best exploited by author Mil Millington.
Shouts of exclamation, pain and disgust can be fun on the page. “Eek!”, “Argh!”, “urgh!” “yowser!”, “eugh!”, “ick!”, “yoiks!”, “oof!”, “blam!”, “ker-splat!”... Ah, but we appear to have strayed into Batman fighting terminology.
Indeed, them’s fighting words...and we can express a punch in the face in many ways, each subtlely different. “Wallop”, “whack”, “thunk”, “slap”, “bonk”, “donk” and “pop” to name but however many I just typed.
Even more varied is the ways we can express the sound of the sexual act in words.
Ye gods...is that the time already?
Firstly, “Oh-oh!” is spelled “Uh-oh!” This should be obvious, given the broken phonetics of the first version.
“Hurray!” is spelled “Hooray!”, whilst “Hoorah!” is actually “Hurrah!”
These things make a difference. The latter, for instance, conveys the sheer medieval exuberance of the word brilliantly, whilst the misspelled version sounds more like an also-ran search engine.
“Hehe” is not a description of laughter in reaction to something you read on the Internet; it is an old man clearing his throat of accumulated tar.
“Leet” is complete gibberish.
“God damn it” and “goddamnit” are all very well, but “goddamn it” just looks more elegant, okay? And “Goddam it” is just wrong.
These are simple standards. Some, though, are worthy of debate. How, for instance, do you convey somebody throwing up in a word? Being sick is an experience that we all have experienced, but generally most of us hang our head over the bowl and quietly let the chunks be blown forth.
The only sound we can record is that of water hitting water and this is No Fun when it comes to the written word. Our vomiters must use their voices. And so “hurrgh!”, “raaaalph!”, “bleugh!”, “glaaaaarreerrrugh!” and “Good lord, this isn’t much fun, is it?” are some suggestions, but there must be more evocative renditions out there.
There was a scene in the first novel of the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf in which one of protagonist Dave Lister’s friends throws up in long, drawn-out and carefully documented style. This was fairly evocative but only truly came to life on the audiobook...a brain-squashing sound narrated impeccably by Spitting Image veteran Chris Barrie. He is, after all, a Professional...to paraphrase the late Hunter S Thompson, who is soon due to leave his last mark on this earth at a ceremony in which his ashes will be shot into the air from a cannon in the shape of a massive Gonzo two-thumbed fist. Really.
Expressions of written low-level disgust are also varied. Their function is to express the humble tut in a more precise way. Thus we have “pff”, “pshaw”, “huh”, “grr”, “tch” and, for the more advanced and subtle writer, “fff”. This last one is the sound of vague annoyance deflating into a shrug and has been best exploited by author Mil Millington.
Shouts of exclamation, pain and disgust can be fun on the page. “Eek!”, “Argh!”, “urgh!” “yowser!”, “eugh!”, “ick!”, “yoiks!”, “oof!”, “blam!”, “ker-splat!”... Ah, but we appear to have strayed into Batman fighting terminology.
Indeed, them’s fighting words...and we can express a punch in the face in many ways, each subtlely different. “Wallop”, “whack”, “thunk”, “slap”, “bonk”, “donk” and “pop” to name but however many I just typed.
Even more varied is the ways we can express the sound of the sexual act in words.
Ye gods...is that the time already?
posted by Jamie at 3:34 PM
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