It doesn’t do “choo-choo” but it’s a train
Overheard in the train tonight:
“This, is a train, it doesn’t do “choo-choo” but it’s a train” says a mother to her kid point at the nice IC2000 CFF Double-decker train.
(picture courtesy of railfan europe).
Why do I blog this? It’s curious how onomatopoeia, which start becoming names for things can survive after the artifact’s behavior becomes utterly different. It’s always intriguing when the naming of things goes berserk. The noise, (i.e. one of the physical manifestation) is more important than the appearance and the behavior.
Choo-Choo, now it’s a wrong onomatopoeia. Other examples?
September 4th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
The german word for photo camera “Knipse”, and the verb “knipsen” (= taking a photo) is another example. Probably “to snap”, or “snapshot” has the same roots? The relation to that clicking sound of a camera shutter is so tight that some digital cameras even make a fake *knips* when taking a photo.
In german the word onomatopoeia can be translated to “Lautmalerei”, which means “painting with sounds”.
Another thing that comes to my mind thinking about this… is the “Save”-icon in windows applications. Years back we probably saved files on floppy discs, but not anymore. But the icon i guess will stay for a long time!