the opposite of onomatopoeia?
A friend recently asked if there was a word for the opposite of onomatopoeia. His example was "monosyllabic." Onomatopoeia, as you recall, is the phenomenon of forming a word in resemblance to whatever it describes: slurp, fart, cock-a-doodle-doo.
But I think you could call "monosyllabic" an anechoic word, and not strictly anti-onomatopoeic.
That's because, strictly speaking, onomatopoeia doesn't just refer to words that in some way happen to resemble what's named (like the very quick word "quick.") It refers to words that are formed by imitation. So, no one formed the word "monosyllabic" to deliberately be multisyllabic to spite its meaning. It just happened that way, like "quick."
That got me to wondering whether there are words that are more than merely anechoic. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "break wind." "Break wind" not only doesn't sound like a fart the way "fart" does; you could argue that its formation came about as a deliberate way to avoid sounding too farty.
And, by the way, the term I shall use is anechopoeia. So, there's one example. Any others?
But I think you could call "monosyllabic" an anechoic word, and not strictly anti-onomatopoeic.
That's because, strictly speaking, onomatopoeia doesn't just refer to words that in some way happen to resemble what's named (like the very quick word "quick.") It refers to words that are formed by imitation. So, no one formed the word "monosyllabic" to deliberately be multisyllabic to spite its meaning. It just happened that way, like "quick."
That got me to wondering whether there are words that are more than merely anechoic. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "break wind." "Break wind" not only doesn't sound like a fart the way "fart" does; you could argue that its formation came about as a deliberate way to avoid sounding too farty.
And, by the way, the term I shall use is anechopoeia. So, there's one example. Any others?
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what is onomatopoeia?
onomatopoeia
I found glisser (generally the French word for slide, not skid) and thought, well, a skid is the least onomatopoeic word there is. You take your car for a ride, hit a patch of ice and start to...
Well a skid is the complete oposite. There is no slide, it just stops there and then. Bang right into the D before you can get going.
So did you ever discover a word meaning anechopoeia?
Another I came acrosse was pulchritude meaning beauty. in today's English the ch might be pronounced a bit hard like a k being a bit rough, maybe even gutteral. However it probably originally sounded more french and softer not being too ugly sounding.
Any update on your research into antonyms for Onomatopoeia?