Word of the Week: Tweet. Until 2007, most of humanity regarded this word as being associated with birds. Today when one says Tweet, it usually relates to the social networking platform Twitter, whose default chirping alert on cell phones is easily among the most annoying sounds in restaurants and other places of communal gathering. Annoying, for it is reminiscent of whistling once commonly used by people who believed others were slacking or not paying attention. The word Tweet does not have a linguistic root unless one considers English to be its native origin. Different languages have different words for the sounds of animals. In English, the sound of a fox is known as gekker and the onomatopoeia is ahw or hahr*, while in Japanese, the onomatopoeia is kon-kon. Tweet originated in 1845 to solely describe the sound of birds, and took the verbal form in 1872. The derivative of tweeter, in reference to loudspeakers, came in 1934. *Ahw and Hahr are not official spellings for the sound of a fox, as the general consensus of what a foxs cry sounds like are usually not spelled. I made these both since I could not find the English equivalent of kon-kon. Gekkering involves yips and howls, and other vocals are described as barking or screeching.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 08:27:31 +0000
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