Wednesday, May 8, 2013

THPTPTH: Exactly how does one depict in letters the sound of one's making a raspberry, or "Bronx cheer"? An illustrated investigation.

6 comments:

  1. Adam B.1:52 PM

    [Related, in today's Capitolwire (sub'n req'd): "Adam Bonin, a
    Philadelphia-based attorney who represented Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro in an appeal, believes the state Supreme Court's ruling is the final stage.
    "After emitting a disapproving 'raspberry' sound, Bonin said it was
    somewhat gratifying to see the court uphold the first Holt decision but in applying that same standard the court should have rejected the revised plan as well."]

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  2. Meghan2:05 PM

    Okay, I only took a few linguistics classes in college, but I think Watterson's depiction comes closest. English doesn't have an interlabial fricative, but the interdental fricative is typically represented by "th," so starting with the th seems appropriate in that regard. The lips do tend to bump against the tongue when articulating the noise, and the bilabial plosives are represented with p and b, so adding those letters to the th seems accurate. The t, though, is not a match because at no point (at least when I make this sound--and I have a 15-month-old who regularly communicates this way, so I think I'm a bit of an expert right now), does the tongue hit the alveolar ridge. The best representation based on place and manner of articulation is, in fact, probably along the lines of "thpbthpbthpb."

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  3. Adam C.5:09 PM

    On Twitter recently, I went with "PPPPPPLLLLLBBBBBBTTTHHHHH." Context: I was watching Blazing Saddles on AMC with captioning on, and the campfire scene was captioned, with appropriate delays:
    [FARTING]
    [FARTING]
    [FARTING]
    [ALL FARTING].
    I thought that was much better than the alternative phonetic spelling.

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  4. Scott_DC5:42 PM

    Wow. I had never seen "Bronx Cheer" used as a synonym for a raspberry. I always thought it referred to a sarcastic cheer of a player on one's own team who finally did something good (or even just not-bad) after a string of poor play.

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  5. Fine. Now someone take on a more complex challenge than THBPHHHHHT and illustrate a Rebel Yell.

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  6. They forgot Joe Btfsplk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Btfsplk

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