h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello

There is a very good article by that clever chap Stanley Fish on this subject, whereby he analyses onomatopoeic words as little phonetic arguments about the sound that they relate to. There is the frequently adduced example of the various international 'dog-noise-word' i.e. woof-woof/bow-wow in English. I forget what the other dog-noise-words are but the point is the dog always says them twice, being the phonetic argument that dogs are rather persistant.

I think this is a useful argument because Saussure really is not that good when it comes down to explaining where this phenomenon comes from.

Also, musical 'tone poems' are an interesting comparison, trying to describe something concrete by means of something extremely abstract.

What about the onomatopoeic qualities of Mike Dirnt’s ‘surname’?
(His surname is actually Pritchard).

His second name is taken from the sound an individual bass string makes when plucked.

Ha. Bet ya didn’t think of that one!