Proofreading Tips - Onomatopoeia

Tee hee. Ha ha. 

It’s August, time for something silly. 

What’s not to like about words which sound like or suggest their meaning? 

From a teaching point of view it’s unfortunate that, of all figures of speech, the one most easily understood by children has such a challenging name and spelling. Contrived from the Greek onomat (name) and poiein (making), it can be further complicated with a typographical ligature for o and e. So, font permitting, there’s onomatopœia (boom tish). 

Writing for children is (rightly) awash with onomatopoeia; here’s an inspiring list of random noises with their usual spellings: 

Natural noises 

- including some from ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’: 

long wavy grass – swish, swash 
mud – squelch, squerch 
storm – hooo wooo, howl, whistle, whine 
water – splash, splosh, splish, babble, drip, gurgle, gush, whoosh 

Animal noises 

Animal noises are interpreted differently around the world. This could have implications for the translated editions of your work: 

bee – buzz, bzzz 
cats – purr, meow, miaow, mew 
cockerels – cock-a-doodle-doo (but it’s the much more accurate cocirico in French and several other languages) 
dogs – bow wow, ruff, woof, yap yap, yelp 
frogs – croak (but for American species it’s ribbit) 
horses – neigh, whinny horses’ hooves – clip clop 
weasels – rzzzz (OK, that’s one for any fans of the Mothers of Invention and/or classic LP covers of the 1970s - recognise the thumbnail at the top of the article?) 

Human body noises 

Fear not, this isn’t going to get too gross: 

crying – boo hoo, wah wah, sniffle, sob, wail, weep 
heartbeat – lub-dub (lmgtfy – that’s the atrioventricular then the semilunar valves) 
noisy drinking– slurp, gulp, glug 
noisy eating – chomp, crunch, munch and now there’s nom nom nom 

disapproval – tsk or tut tut (these are alveolar clicks… ta dah!) 
shivering confirmation - brrr 
sneezing – atishoo or achoo (though the range of human sneezing in my experience includes hup-boo, aa-rarg and tssk) 

Miscellaneous noises 

siren – Another noise with translation implications. Nee naw (UK) but of course there’s woo woo (USA) and many more variations around the world. 
archery – twang 
coins – jingle 
extinguishing a candle – pfft 
spring/trampoline – boing and so on! 

You’re in good company if you’re feeling inventive: 
cat – mkgnao in James Joyce’s Ulysses 
horses – houyhnhnm in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels 
horses’ hooves – tlot-tlot in Alfred Noyes’s The Highwayman 







And finally – spelling can be varied for effect, of course. Pressure exerted on a ruler clamped by the lid of the desk creates dwoing… or dwoiiinnnnggggg…

@ProofreadingTip

Catriona Tippin has been a member of SCBWI since 2006 and helps organise venues for SCBWI North East. Details of her writing and illustrating here. She proofreads study guides, house magazines and publicity material for national educational organisations, in addition to working on a variety of proofreads and copyedits for the growing self-published world. Her monthly column is intended to give you food for thought, remembering “Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling or typographical error” (McKean’s Law, named after its inventor Erin McKean, editor of the Oxford American Dictionary).