O is for onomatopoeia, onomatopoetic, onomato

This if the 17 day of Blogging from A to Z. Today’s Letter is O

The root word onomato means name joined to poieîn, we have to make names. The very word onomatopoeia or my preferred form, onomatopoetic because sometimes the words are poetic, refers to those words that were made up to emulate the sounds of things.

I prefer the form onomatopoetic, because at least in some languages, the words are more poetic to my ear. They conform to some linguistic system they are part of; so although a clock may sound tick tock in English, it is dī dā in Mandarin, or katchin katchin in Japanese.

But back to plain ole, if not so poetic, onomatopoeic words here in the US; oink, oink, sounds the pig, and Batman and Robin utter oof and ow when hit by ‘Pow!”