The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
Beep.
Bark.
Crunch.
Purr.
Shuffle.
Trickle.
Zap.
Zoom.
And here's one you don't automatically think to add to the list.
Obituary.
I'll tell you how it deserves a place on the list in a minute.
First, though, sad news this weekend of a life well lived and ended too soon.
Andrew Gold died yesterday.
59. Heart attack.
Ouch.
Onomatopoetically speaking.
As with the passing of James Arness this weekend, Andrew Gold is going to get next to nothing in terms of name recognition from anyone under the age of forty five, save for the ardent audiophile, pop music trivia type or TV theme song buff.
His sudden passing will likely generate hardly a splish, let alone a splash.
Twin onomatopoeia. Double word score.
Any mention of his name you might happen upon this weekend will almost certainly be prefaced with the term "singer/songwriter".
As in "singer/songwriter Andrew Gold dies at 59", etc.
Because while much of his considerable portfolio of career accomplishment arguably qualifies as "household words", his name itself will require the aforementioned preface to make his inclusion in any news reporting valid.
As opposed, say, to if Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian were to suddenly and unexpectedly pass, when everyone would instantly know who we were talking about, making it completely unnecessary to include the identifying preface "talentless, self absorbed celebrity/reality show star..".
Zing.
So to onomatopoetically speak.
I won't wham, wallop or splatter you with the minutiae of Andrew Gold's life and career here.
That's why God created Google.
A website name, by the way, I think deserves a place on the list as well.
What I'm willing to bet, though, no matter your age, is that you have been exposed, at one time or another, to the work of "singer/songwriter Andrew Gold".
I'm also willing to bet that any news you read about him this weekend is going to include, likely early on, that he was the composer of the theme song to the TV show, "The Golden Girls", "Thank You For Being A Friend'.
And any testimonial to him that appears at all is likely to have that song and/or title plunked and plopped in our direction.
I'll spare you the squawk, snarl and snort about how predictable that is.
And simply offer up, as tribute to a talent too soon gone zip, zap, zoom, a song written and performed by a close friend, collaborator and fellow performer of Andrew Gold's.
Singer/songwriter Karla Bonoff.
Oh...and as for reason I think "obituary" deserves a place on the list of onomatopoetic words?
Trying to distill a full, rich and amazing life into just a few, attention span challenged sentences is a bitch.
As a rule, I don't order the cheeseburger from the seafood restaurant's menu.
Primarily because while I appreciate the courtesy the restaurant is showing by making the burger available to those who might not be partial to shellfish, I'm pretty much zeroed in on the inevitable assumption that since its not their specialty, it's probably not going to be anything special.
In that spirit, I've never been much for social commentary being served me on a bed of pop music.
And, I'd offer you, that probably puts me in the majority.
The proof being, for example, that while, fifty years and a couple of generations later, The Beatles can still sell millions of copies of any greatest hits type album that gets released, there never has been, and likely never will be, any great consumer outcry for a compilation of "John Lennon's Greatest Protest Songs".
Despite every best intention we have to appear sophisticated and erudite by embracing, even "ahhh, yes"-ing the work of pop singers that touches, even hammers, us with their observations of the pressing social issues of our time, I think we all secretly would prefer that they just take us away from our troubles in three to five minutes bursts and leave the editorializing to the op/ed pundits.
Which brings me to two words you're likely to be hearing fairly often for a while.
Man down.
Rihanna's song, and video, portraying the killing of a man who has inflicted a physical and sexual assault on the female heroine of the song/video.
PARENT/SPOILER/FOX NEWS LOYALIST ALERT: The video is included at the end of this piece for your personal perusal and/or assessment.
As soon as the song/video hit the light of airplay, two knees jerked almost simultaneously.
The various and sundry "violence monitors" such as the Parents Television Council who seem to be programmed to spit out the word "ban" at a speed that would make Danica Patrick appear to be sitting there, engine idling.
And the advocate cum zealots who passionately believe that there can never be any such thing as too much information, too much awareness or even too much too much.
Leslie Morgan Steiner is an articulate voice whose observations seem to fall pretty much right between those two respective knees (pun sincerely unintended, but ultimately inevitable).
And here's a couple of pennies I'd like to add to Ms. Steiner's.
First, I agree completely with her point that "..reruns of Law & Order contain more disturbing crimes. Men's rap songs glamorizing sexual subjugation of women strike me as far more destructive, yet I hear their lyrics on my kids' favorite radio station every day...."
Frankly, Leslie, I'll go you one better. Watch two or three episodes of "Criminal Minds" and you'll think Rihanna's video would play just fine on Nickelodeon.
Admittedly, that's a facile comparison in the vein of "your marriage is better than mine because your husband only beats you twice a week while mine does it four."
But my point, and the bottom line on the video, is simply this.
In a culture filled to overflowing with gratuitous, salacious, even horrific imagery that constitutes a big deal, the imagery in Man Down is no big deal.
As a parent and grandparent, rightly concerned with the well being of offspring and offspring offspring, I don't have a problem, per se', with the line between appropriate and inappropriate that Rihanna has been, and will continue to be, accused of crossing.
I've got my eye on another line I think a little more insidious.
The line between pop and propaganda.
Propaganda being defined, in this instance, as "....a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself..."
And to any owners of eyebrows that just shot up, let me underline for you that I stand firmly behind and/or beside any concerted effort to stop violence.
I've just never heard anyone make a sufficiently convincing case for the idea that ITunes should be used as a bully pulpit.
As Ms. Steiner correctly points out, Rihanna was, herself, a victim of physical violence and, as such, is in a powerful position to advocate for the prevention/elimination of that violence.
And because of her celebrity, I suspect she could be a powerful voice via public service announcement, town hall meetings, school assembly, news/talk show interview, et al on the subject, putting a very public face on a very public problem.
I'm just not even close to convinced that the most effective means to accomplish that very important task is by standing on a soapbox to sing, especially when that singing is a means to a potentially lucrative financial reward.
Not to mention implying, even advocating, intentionally or not, that the deserved response to being harmed is to inflict further harm.
I'd like to think that Rihanna thinks she is doing some good here.
I can't help but wonder what she's going to think if someone in real life decides to follow her example and kill their attacker.
Social commentary can be, ironically, a more powerful weapon than even the gun that Rihanna uses to exact "justice" in the video.
The kind of power that put in the hands of entertainers, at worst, can cause unexpectedly tragic results.
And, at best, is likely nothing special
That's why I've always thought it important that pop singers leave the social commentary to the social commentators.
And why I never choose the cheeseburger over selecting the shrimp.
Onomatopoeia.
