"Onomatopoeia" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such a line as 'Tu—whit!—Tu—whoo!' that we might not fall into the mistake of supposing originality to be its sole merit." The example is not very happily chosen, for Coleridge could hardly have claimed "originality" for an onomatopoeia which occurs in one of Shakspeare's best known lyrics; but it serves well enough to illustrate the fact that he "very seldom went right to the end of any piece of poetry; to pause and analyse was ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... together with inward or outward breathing, and especially the mute or liquid consonants ending words which serve to indicate abrupt or continuous motion, have corresponding meanings in so many cases as to show a fundamental connection. I thus enormously extended the principle of onomatopoeia in the origin of vocal language. As I have been unable to find any reference to this important factor in the origin of language, and as no competent writer has pointed out any fallacy in it, I think I am justified ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... words. (1) There are no lions in China; shih is merely an imitation of the Persian word shir. (2) Mao, the term for a "cat," is obviously an example of onomatopoeia. ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... and being better compacted for human perception they seem more expressive and can be linked more unequivocally with other sources of feeling. So a given vocal sound may have more or less analogy to the thing it is used to signify; this analogy may be obvious, as in onomatopoeia, or subtle, as when short, sharp sounds go with decision, or involved rhythms and vague reverberations with a floating dream. What seems exquisite to one poet may accordingly seem vapid to another, when the texture of experience in the two minds differs, so that a given composition ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana |
