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SFX (the script acronym for sound effect) represents one of my favorite concepts: onomatopoeia — a word that phonetically imitates the sound that it represents. Pretty cool, right?

But there is one particular facet that I find especially fascinating. Onomatopes are not the same across all languages, so whilst the English onomatopoeia for knocking is knock knock, in Batak it’s tok-tok-tok, in Mandarin dang dang dang, in Danish bank bank, in Hindi thakk thakk, in Polish puk-puk, in Swedish knack knack, and in Dutch klop klop.

Even more fascinating, at least to me, is that Marvel Comics has trademarked two onomatopoeias: SNIKT! and TWHIP! (left and lovingly burgled from Timothy Lim’s DeviantArt page, NinjaInk.)

Looks like someone around here needs to trademark DOOZH!

I wonder how they say DOOZH! in Mandarin?

Page Seven Notes:

• “Let’s talk about our big but.” A variation on, perhaps, my favorite line of dialogue in cinema. Well, that and, “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli,” but you probably already knew that.
• Speaking of dang, dang, dangin‘, whilst that form of greeting has been made popular by physicists, judges and frustrated writers, no one has perfected it until this feline. Heeere’s kitty!