birds, fish, and onomatopoeia

                                                                                     This image belongs to Adam Koford on Tumblr.

Sometimes I catch myself wishing that I had a cooler surname. (Sorry, Dad, but it's true.) "Post" seems kind of basic sometimes. It's a one-syllable word, for one thing. It sounds chunky and awkward. Post. Not much you can do with that. Whenever I get into these moods, I wish for a longer last name, one less bereft of imagination or dignity.

I've compiled a list, in case you're interested. Just so you can say them out loud and compare. Heck, I'll even give you my first name. Feel privileged: this is the first time I've shared it on this blog. It's Andrew.

So take Andrew and match it with some of these babies:

• Shackleton — as in Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer.
• Rackham — as in "Calico Jack" Rackham, the pirate; I'd suggest using my nickname "Andy" for this one.
• Livingstone — "Andrew Livingstone, I presume?"
• Sullivan — Ed Sullivan.
• Longstreet — James Longstreet, Confederate general.
• Minogue — I had to throw that one in there, 'cause my mom reads this blog and she'll get the joke. It refers to Kylie Minogue...
• Remington — after Eliphalet Remington, who founded E. Remington & Sons in 1816...yes, that Remington.
• Winchester — 'cause that wouldn't sound too bad either.
• Hightower — after quip-and-quote author Cullen Hightower.
• Hillary — Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest; and while we're on that subject, "Tenzing Norgay" is a pretty badass name too.
• Beckenbauer — nobody in particular, it just sounds cool.
• Faulkner — if you don't know who inspired this choice, I'll smack you.
• Fitzgerald — ditto; there's a film based on one of his books in theaters right now!
• Driscoll — Jack Driscoll from King Kong.

They sound so austere, don't they?

Then I remember that some of my favorite people in the world—particularly writers—have one-syllable last names. H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, Howard Hughes, Gustav Holst, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Ringo Starr, Orville & Wilbur Wright, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Thomas Hobbes, Howard Hawks, James Burke, Dave Grohl, Mungo Park, Captain James Cook, and H. &  H. Fritz. (Those last two are my grandparents.) Every single one of my Korean students, past and present, has a one-syllable surname—be it Choi or Han or Lee or Kim. And there's a lot of fictional characters who are near and dear to my heart who have 'em, too: Martin Riggs, Arthur Dent, Bruce Wayne, and (of course) Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones.

I can't forget that Post is my parents' name, too. And my brother's. And all my ancestors, going back to Germany or the Netherlands or wherever the heck they're from. And that's all right by me. I guess "A.T. Post" wouldn't look too bad on a hardback cover in a bookstore.

Speaking of sounding more austere, I did something interesting in one of my free-talking classes yesterday. I have just one single student, whom I'll call Justine. (I always liked that name. I'm angling for it to be the name of my first daughter, but Miss H isn't budging.) We got to talking about animal names, somehow. If it's one thing I'm short on, it's Korean vocabulary. So we started swapping names. I'd come up with an animal and she'd tell me the Korean name. In this way I found out the words for cuckoo (ddak-dda-guri), owl (bu-eong-i), ostrich (tajo), flounder (gajami), eel (jang-eo), oyster (gul), stingray (gwang-eo), and jellyfish (haepari). This was partly for our enjoyment, partly for my education and partly so Justine would be able to impress her future employers with her English vocabulary.

We also talked about animal sounds. I discovered that the Koreans have quite a different set of these, and in many cases, the sound is more faithfully reproduced than they are in the Western lexicon. Over here, mice don't squeak, they say jjik-jjik. (To make this work properly, your Korean pronunciation has to be flawless. Speak the words rapidly in a high-pitched tone, pronouncing the double-j with a grin on your face and barely scraping over the k at the end. The result sounds remarkably like the cheep-cheep noise which mice actually do make. Now, please record yourself doing this and send it to me. Tee hee.)

Cats don't meow, they say na-ong. Try it. Nah-oh-ng. Roll it together with the same rising and falling inflection that you'd use to say "meow" if you were imitating a cat. NAONG! Crazy, eh?

Dogs don't growl, they say eu-reu-reong. (The "eu" vowel sound is manufactured by saying "oo" without making  your lips into an "o" shape. "Reong" sounds like the English word "rung." Blend it all together in a dog-like voice and you'll get the idea.)

We also talked about onomatopoeia. Once I'd conveyed the meaning of this bewildering word to her, she smiled and started ticking off sounds. It seems that, in Korea, old men don't grumble: they say "Jujeol-jujeol." This is what inarticulate kvetching sounds like—sort of what the word "jewel" would be if you replaced the "w" with another "j."

It's common practice, especially among poor male college students and young bachelors, to go down to the convenience store at night, buy a bowl of instant ramen, and prepare it and eat it right there in the store. Most shops and corner marts have a microwave oven and a small counter on-site. It doesn't surprise me anymore when I see a crowd of schoolboys (or even elderly couples on weekends) standing over matching bowls of steaming noodles in a 7-11 or a Mini-Stop, slurping them up contentedly.

The sound effect for slurping is hu-ru-ruk. Again, go real lightly over the k at the end. Don't think of it as a sound, but rather as the place where sound stops. Blur the syllables of the word all together, as fast as you can. Slur it. Better yet, don't use your voice: whisper it. Breathe it in. Try to make a slurping noise with your mouth as you say it, and you'll hear it.

As with other Asian nations, the Koreans have onomatopoeia for states and activities that normally don't even make a sound. I think I've mentioned on this blog that the Japanese (and likely the Koreans) have sound effects for staring (jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii), standing still (shakeen), jaws dropping (gabeen) and falling in love (mero-mero). A lot of these probably come from comic books and aren't in the general lexicon, but you never know. One of the ones that Justine told me about yesterday was kkeunjeok-kkeunjeok. It sounds like "goon-juck," if you say the g and the k REALLY QUIETLY. Bounce over them as if your tongue was a tennis ball oscillating between two rackets. Kkeunjeok-kkeunjeok.

This is the sound of stickiness.

I kid you not. For the full effect, place your spread fingers on a tabletop and retract them as if you were putting them in dried maple syrup, and say this sound. Kkeunjeok-kkeunjeok. You can just hear the sticky.

To me, these noises sound more accurate than the ones I was brought up with. Maybe that's just me, but it's undeniable and it's maddening. I don't know what to attribute the eerie accuracy of Korean onomatopoeia to: perhaps it's because the language is so full of glottal consonants and versatile vowels that they're naturally disposed toward making sounds with their mouths. Or perhaps it's just because the Koreans are an ancient Confucian people that take pride in actually listening to sounds and reproducing them accurately—and have had several thousand years to practice.

Anyway, I thought you might find that interesting.

A.T. Post, signing off.