Oh-no-Matt! Pee-Ya?! Matt goes Pssssss... How about onomatopoeia?

"The first pair of cups contains a Guatemalan. Sluuuurp. “Do you feel that buttery mouth-feel?” says the older man, Don Schroeder, after spitting expertly into the small sink beside his stool. Next is a Kenyan. Sluuuurp, spit. Notes of fruit and wine. Sluuuuurp. The Sumatran is earthy, even musty. No. 4 has the mild, almost neutral flavour characteristic of the world’s coffee mecca, Brazil"

- Dawn Calleja, The Globe and Mail, How Tim Hortons will take over the world


 I once shared a dorm room with a guy from Japan. After school, we would work on homework at our desks in our room facing the opposite sides of the room. While doing homework, we would talk about random things about our day. Tomohito would ask me questions about English: the meaning of idioms and when to use slang. This lead to me asking him about words in Japanese they would use to describe sound. In English, I think we call it onomatopoeia.

To my amazement, Tomo said Japanese loved their onomatopoeia and that they have a sound to describe pretty much everything. So I did a Google search and found JapanSugoi: Everything Cool about Japan.

This site was unreal! You really have to check it out. There was a long list of the sounds they used to describe the sound from the roaring of flames (goooo) to what you would hear if someone were to slip off their clothes (sulu). Again, these weren't Japanese-to-English translations of the actions. These were Japanese onomatopoeia!

But please, don't get these sounds mixed up:

• kaaa = (energy blast charging up)
• kaaaa = (glow)

or

• pasa = (light falling object)
• dosa dosa = (falling objects)

At least Japanese have a guide. How about English? What do we use as a guide for proper use (and spelling!) of onomatopoeia? What does The CP Stylebook (The Canadian Press Stylebook) say? My answer: I forgot my CP Stylebook in my locker :(

So for the clip above from The Globe and Mail, how do we edit the word "sluuuurp"? What is the slurp sound spelling standard? If you asked me, they used one letter 'u' too many.

Here, Japanese would use "pan!" to describe a slap sound