Pronouns are tricky business and it can be tough to decide whether to say “me” or “I.” Is it “look at this picture of me and you” or is it “you and I”? We have a trick for figuring out which pronouns to use.
If you’re a native English speaker, there’s an easy trick for remembering whether you should say “look at this picture of my mom and me” or “look at this picture of my mom and I”: Remove the words “my mom and.” Because you wouldn’t say “look at this picture of I,” you also shouldn’t say “a picture of my mom and I.” You can apply this to just about any phrase with potentially confusing pronouns, and it’ll work the same way. For example, because “her went to the store” is incorrect, so is “her and I went to the store” — it’s “she and I went to the store.”
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This trick for relying on what sounds right will work best for native speakers who grew up hearing people speak in correct and natural rhythms. To get a bit more technical, we need to distinguish between subjective and objective pronouns. The former refers to the subject of a sentence, while the latter tells us who is performing or receiving an action. I, you, he, she, it, we, you, and they are subjective pronouns, whereas me, you, her, him, it, us, you, and them are objective pronouns. The two types of pronouns are paired with different parts of speech and therefore have different meanings. An objective pronoun (“me”) would follow a preposition such as “with” or “between,” while a subjective pronoun (“I”) is paired with a verb.
To sum things up, if there’s a preposition such as “between” or “with,” the proper phrasing is “between you and me.” That’s because the preposition needs to be followed by an objective pronoun rather than a subjective pronoun. Test this by switching the pronouns. If you say “between we,” it’s clear that you’re using the wrong pronoun.
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When wishing upon a star, is it “I wish I were” or “I wish I was”? This tricky conundrum comes down to the subjunctive mood, and it’s pretty easy to figure out when you understand the grammar rule behind it.
If you’ve ever pondered this question, allow us to introduce you to the subjunctive. This verb form is used for potential and hypothetical situations, including when wishing for something that doesn’t exist yet. In these wishful contexts, “were” is the past-tense conjugation of “to be” you’re looking for. Example: “I wish I were covered in kittens” is correct because it’s referring to something that hasn’t actually happened — and, alas, may never happen.
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If and when such a situation should come to pass, however, “was” is correct when mentioning it. “I was the happiest person in the world when I was covered in kittens” is the proper phrasing because it’s referring to something that happened rather than a hypothetical situation. For a mnemonic, when something “has” happened, the matching verb is “was.”
Learning the subjunctive comes with a downside: realizing how often it’s misused, including in songs, movies, and other pop culture. Singing along to Skee-Lo’s “I Wish” is ever-so-slightly less enjoyable once you’re aware that the lyric should be “I wish I were a little bit taller,” but it’s a catchy tune nevertheless. At least we can take solace in the fact that Pink Floyd never sang, “How I wish, how I wish you was here.”
We’re reviewing the parts of speech — the categories words are assigned based on their function. There are eight parts of speech and the mnemonic PAPA N VIC can help you remember them.
Welcome to another refresher course in English grammar. Today we’re reviewing the parts of speech — the categories words are assigned based on their function. There are eight parts of speech, some of which have only a few member words, while others contain thousands of words. And thanks to the many quirks of the English language, some words operate as multiple parts of speech. Let’s review the basics of these language building blocks.
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Tip: For memory aid, use the mnemonic “PAPA N VIC.” It may sound like an Italian takeout joint, but it stands for pronoun, adjective, preposition, adverb, noun, verb, interjection, conjunction.
Noun
When you first learned about the fundamentals of English grammar in elementary school, this is probably where your teacher started. A noun is a word that names a person, place, concept, or object — basically, any type of “thing.” For example, “cat,” “New York City,” “library,” “Taylor Swift,” and “optimism” are nouns. A proper noun is a name or a title for a specific thing — “New York City” and “Taylor Swift” are proper nouns. You can usually spot a proper noun because it’s always capitalized (unless it’s a specific stylized brand name, such as iPhone). A common noun is a generic name for a given thing:“cat,” “library,” and “optimism,” for example.
Pronoun
Pronouns are misunderstood a lot these days, but as a part of speech, a pronoun is a word that replaces a specific noun when the reader or listener already knows which noun is being referred to. It’s both shorthand and a way of making writing and speech less repetitive. It might go something like this: “Megan said I could borrow her car, but she already lent it to her brother.” The pronouns “she/her” act as a stand-in for “Megan,” and “it” stands in for “car.”
When using pronouns, it’s important to be clear what they’re standing in for. Take this example: “I saw Megan and Claire earlier, and she said I could borrow her car. Because the first clause of the sentence contains two names, it’s unclear which name “she/her” is replacing. It would be more clear to say, “I saw Megan and Claire earlier, and Megan said I could borrow her car.” Now we know that “her” is a stand-in for Megan, not Claire.
There are an almost unlimited number of nouns in the English language, but there’s a much smaller set of pronouns. Personal pronouns refer to people: I, you, he, she, we, they, me, him, her, us, and them. “It” is also considered a personal pronoun, but it stands in for non-people nouns. Interrogative pronouns introduce questions in which a noun is the answer: what, which, who, whom, and whose. Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, and those) are used to indicate something is separate from something else. We can use both interrogative and demonstrative pronouns together: “Whose keys are these? Those are Jose’s keys.”
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Verb
Verbs are words that designate actions (nouns and pronouns perform these actions). A verb might also refer to a feeling or state of being, such as “to love” or “to be.”. When the verb has the word “to” paired with it, that’s the infinitive form; it changes form based on the subject (the noun or pronoun performing the action) and the tense (past, present, future). For example: to run, you run, I ran, we were running, they will run.
That’s just a sampling of how to use a regular verb, but things get very complicated with irregular verbs, such as “go” (with the past tense of “went”).
Adjective
Adjectives are words that describe nouns. In the phrase “big house on a tall hill overlooking a blue lake,” “big,” “tall,” and “blue” are adjectives. They provide more description and context than the noun by itself. When multiple words work together to describe a noun, we call that an adjective phrase (for example: “too big to fail”).
Articles (the words “a,” “an,” and “the”) are considered adjectives because they pair with nouns to help describe them. For example, “the apple” (meaning a specific one) is an important distinction from “an apple” (meaning any apple).
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Adverb
Similar to adjectives, adverbs are descriptive words, but instead of describing nouns, they describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. In other words, they describe a way of doing something, rather than a thing itself. Take this example: “The cat ran very quickly across the room.” “Very” and “quickly” are both adverbs — “quickly” describes how the cat ran, and “very” quantifies how quickly the cat ran. Words that end in “-ly” are usually adverbs, but not all adverbs end in “-ly.” Words in the latter subgroup include “never,” “often,” “sometimes,” “again,” “meanwhile,” “instead,” “better,” and “best” — just to list a few.
Preposition
Prepositions articulate the relationship between other words in the sentence; examples include “up,” “against,” “in,” and “below.” Most frequently, prepositions describe direction, time, location, or space, though they can be more abstract than that. They generally identify where something is or when something happened. For example: “I left my jacket at the theater after we saw a movie.” In this sentence, “at” describes where the jacket was left and “after” describes when it was left there.
Editor’s note: Don’t believe the rule about not ending your sentences with prepositions. It’s old-fashioned guidance, and it’s now perfectly acceptable.
Conjunction
If the Schoolhouse Rock! song “Conjunction Junction” isn’t playing in your head, we’ll elaborate. Conjunctions are connective words such as “and,” “but,” or “if.” They make it possible to write or say complex sentences that express multiple ideas more elegantly than writing them out as separate sentences. Consider this example: “I like cats. I like dogs. I don’t like birds.”
While it’s technically grammatically correct to express your ideas this way, it’s not the most efficient or refined way to do so, and it comes across as quite choppy. Using conjunctions, you could express the same sentiment this way: “I like cats and dogs, but I don’t like birds.”
Interjection
Wow! We’ve reached the eighth part of speech: interjections. An interjection is an abrupt remark or exclamation made to express a sudden feeling, such as the “Wow!” at the beginning of this paragraph. Other examples include “Ouch!” “Yikes!” “Oh my!” and “Oops!” Interjections can describe negative or positive emotions, and in general there aren’t a lot of rules about how to use them (except, perhaps, to do it sparingly). An interjection word is usually accompanied by an exclamation point, but it’s not required. You might want to treat them a bit like pronouns, in that they require some context. An interjection doesn’t make a lot of sense without explaining why you suddenly came to that emotion.
Handwriting is almost as unique as a fingerprint, but we’re all taught how to write from the same basic lessons. Who invented the swirls and curls of cursive script?
Like many millennia-old practices, the invention of cursive writing was more of a collective effort than something we can attribute to one person. It goes as far back as the Roman Empire, after written language first developed. Square capitals were used on inscriptions on buildings and monuments (some of which are still standing), but cursive (or script) was used for daily writing.
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Later, in the eighth century, monks created the Carolingian script — the earliest form of standardized cursive that others built upon. This script evolved during medieval times, and its twists and curls became harder to read before the Renaissance revived the Carolingian way. The earliest form of cursive you probably recognize is called Copperplate. Calligrapher Timothy Matlack penned Thomas Jefferson’s words on the original copy of the Declaration of Independence using the Copperplate script.
While beautiful, this fancy calligraphy wasn’t practical for everyday writing, so a teacher named Platt Rogers Spencer developed a new form of penmanship around the mid-1800s. He came up with the name “chirythmography,” from the Greek words for “timed hand writing.” He used a metronome for writers to keep pace with his elliptical letters, which he claimed were inspired by nature. The “Spencerian” method was taught in schools for the latter half of the 19th century.
Quick-working clerks and telegraph operators translating Morse code into script found the Spencer cursive still too time consuming, though. Enter: Austin Palmer and the Palmer method. Palmer’s idea was to make cursive writing more practical and lose the fancy flourishes from the Renaissance days. This form of script was very popular in the early 20th century and can probably be seen in old letters from your great- and great-great-grandparents.
From there, penmanship started to become big business. It was taught in grade schools, and adults entering the business world got a leg up if they completed a course in a penmanship school. The Zanerian College of Penmanship became the Zaner-Bloser Company, selling handwriting instruction material to schools. The Zaner-Bloser cursive and the later D’Nealian cursive are the simple scripts that were taught in grade school during the second half of the 20th century. While many school districts dropped cursive curriculum in the 2010s, it recently began regaining a foothold across the United States. In 2024, California became the 22nd state to require teaching cursive handwriting in its schools.
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Adverbs are a part of speech used to add description and context to your verb choices. You can usually spot them with an “-ly” suffix, but flat adverbs are an exception. Here’s why they’re commonly confused with adjectives.
He spoke quietly. They ran quickly. The last word in each of these two sentences is an adverb, a word that modifies a verb. We know that a complete sentence has a subject (a noun or a pronoun) and a verb, but adverbs are another part of speech that serves to add color and nuance to clauses. They’re a handy writer’s tool used to describe an action or give more detail about a verb. We’re usually able to spot adverbs easily, as most end in the letters “–ly.”
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This is not always the case, though — a flat adverb is a descriptive word that’s missing that “-ly” suffix. Flat adverbs often look identical to their adjective counterparts, and both are used to modify or describe another part of speech. However, they differ in usage: Adverbs describe a verb instead of a noun. It seems simple enough, but many adverbs and adjectives are interchangeable.
Take, for example, the word “fast.” It can be used as both an adjective and an adverb. To use it as an adjective, you might say, “She was on the fast track to success.” In this example, the adjective “fast” describes the noun “track.” When “fast” is used as a flat adverb, though, the usage of the word changes. While still denoting quickness, in the phrase “she ran fast,” the flat adverb “fast” describes the speed of the verb “ran.”
There are, of course, regular adverb synonyms (“quickly,” “swiftly,” “hurriedly”) for the flat adverb “fast.” Each of these conveys a slightly different tone than the flat adverb, which helps explain why there are so many more regular adverbs than flat. If the goal is to add description, it’s usually worth using the most powerful word at your disposal.
The letter “a” is the shortest and first word alphabetically in the dictionary. It’s also a part of speech called an article. It joins “an” and “the” in the category as words that pair with nouns — for example, “a dog,” “an apple,” and “the bike.” Then we can insert adjectives and quantifiers to flesh out the noun phrases: “a young dog,” “a lot of apples,” “the green bike.” Seems simple enough. So why is removing the space and turning “a lot” into “alot” such a common mistake?
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Let’s first examine what the words mean. The phrase “a lot” means “a large amount.” (For example: “There are a lot of children in the family.”) “Alot” is not a word, but it’s a common misspelling of “a lot,” which should always be written as two words. The words “lots” or “many” can also be used to mean the same thing.
The word “allot,” meanwhile, has an entirely different definition. It’s a verb that means “to apportion a share or task.” (For example: “Each child will be allotted one cookie before bedtime.”) It’s related to the noun “allotment,” which means “the amount of something allocated to a particular person.”
The mistake of “alot” may be a simple typo, but if it’s done on purpose, the confusion likely comes from the words “apart” and “awhile.” These are words. “A part” is a phrase meaning “a piece of,” including the article “a” and the noun “part,” while “apart” is an adverb used to describe things that have been separated. “Awhile” is an adverb that means “for a short time,” and “a while” is a noun phrase meaning “a period of time.”In speech, these distinctions won’t be obvious, but in writing, a missing or misplaced space can change the meaning. Check your articles and “a” words to make sure you’re not piling up a lot of mistakes.
“A Freudian slip is saying one thing when you mean your mother.” So goes a famous joke. But why do we sometimes say one thing when we mean another? These accidental slip-ups are usually just a mistake, but they’ve been used to hilarious effect in TV and movies.
“A Freudian slip is saying one thing when you mean your mother.” So goes a beloved psychology joke.
Between political gaffes and television comedies, Freudian slips happen every day. Also called “slips of the tongue,” these mistakes are named after Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis (the analysis and treatment of emotional disorders). The technical term for the phenomenon is “parapraxis,” which can best be described as a linguistic error (either verbal or written) that expresses unconscious feelings, beliefs, or impulses. Usually, these slips are harmless and can be attributed to common experiences, such as tiredness or being distracted — for example, when a child calls their teacher “mom,” or when a parent calls their child by a sibling’s name.
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Other occurrences of parapraxis, such as the ones Freud studied, are a result of unconscious influences. Some can be deeply rooted, usually in desire, which is what most interested Freud. A common example is calling a current partner by an ex’s name. Freud first detailed these slips in his 1901 book, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, where he referred to them as Fehlleistungen (German for “faulty actions”).
More research has been done on Freudian slips over the past century, some aiming to debunk Freud’s beliefs. Experts have yet to collect conclusive evidence that Freudian slips are a direct result of unconscious thoughts, but the topic is still up for debate. In the meantime, pop culture is full of notable examples of Freudian slips that led to great comedic effect.
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The One With Ross’s Wedding
One of the most famous Freudian slips in television history happened during season 4 of the hit sitcom Friends. In the 1998 episode “The One With Ross’s Wedding, Part 2,” Ross (played by David Schwimmer) demonstrates a familiar Freudian slip: accidentally using an ex-partner’s name for a current partner. At the altar, he says, “I, Ross, take thee, Rachel,” instead of “I, Ross, take thee, Emily,” the name of his wife-to-be. This verbal hiccup occurs after Rachel’s appearance at the ceremony takes him by surprise — a perfect example of subconscious thoughts causing a major fiasco.
Ross’ famous line came about thanks to a real slip of the tongue by Schwimmer: He genuinely mixed up the names “Rachel” and “Emily” during an earlier episode’s rehearsal. The producers loved it so much that they decided to use the mix-up as a storyline for the future wedding scene.
Meryl Streep Would Like To “Spank…”
During the 2003 British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), acclaimed actress Meryl Streep took to the stage to accept an award on behalf of Charlie Kaufman, who won Best Adapted Screenplay for Adaptation. As Streep read the amusing speech that Kaufman had sent to her, she accidentally said, “I would like to spank,” rather than “thank.” The audience roared with laughter as Streep paused and covered her mouth. She went on and fixed her mistake, obviously slightly embarrassed but also appearing to see the humor in the situation.
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Raising Money for the Rich
Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron made an unfortunate gaffe when asked about taxation during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in 2012. Cameron explained that the Tories (a conservative British political party) were busy “raising more money for the rich.” He meant to say “for the poor,” but British tabloids poked fun at the slip.
Leo’s Real-Life “Titanic” Slip-Up
Can you guess what line from Titanic was a result of a real slip of the tongue by Leonardo DiCaprio? During filming of the notorious nude drawing scene, DiCaprio made an awkward mistake — instead of directing Rose (Kate Winslet) to the couch, he said, “Over on the bed.” He quickly corrected himself, but the line was so good that producers kept it in the movie. While the actors claim there has never been anything romantic between them, perhaps DiCaprio’s Freudian slip hinted at what could have been.
“Austin Powers in Goldmember”
The Austin Powers film franchise delighted audiences with its witty writing and off-the-wall antics involving Austin Powers and Dr. Evil (both played by Mike Myers). During a scene in Austin Powers in Goldmember, Dr. Evil notices that everything Powers does is aimed at gaining his father’s approval. After Dr. Evil points this out, Powers’ lines keep referring to his father: “Nothing could be my father from the truth!” and “No, I dadn’t!”
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When you hear the word “Goldilocks,” do you think of the phrase “juuuust right” or blond hair? The former connotation goes to show the lasting power of a good story.
When you hear the word “Goldilocks,” it’s likely paired with the phrase “juuuust right,” rather than anything having to do with blond hair. This connotation goes to show the lasting power of a good story.
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While “Goldilocks” has been a nickname for a person with bright yellow hair since the 1540s, the more modern idiomatic usage revolves around a fairy tale. It was first published by Robert Southey’s miscellany The Doctor in 1837, but the oral tradition is older. Originally, the familiar story starred a bad-tempered old woman, and then there was a similar story with a silver-haired woman. But the most favored version was about a golden-haired girl who enters the house of the Three Bears and declares the possessions of Baby Bear to be “just right” as compared to those of Father Bear and Mother Bear. It was this later version about a flaxen-haired heroine named Goldilocks that had more staying power in the cultural zeitgeist. So much so that nowadays, “Goldilocks” is a general descriptor for any sort of ideal condition in a range of fields. Let’s look at how we got here.
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Good Hair Day
As a nickname for a yellow-haired person, “goldilocks” appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries with various spellings, including “govdelokis,” “goldie-lockes,” and “Goldylocks.” By the mid-19th century, the spelling had standardized to “goldilocks.” In 1875, a revamped version of Southey’s fairy tale was published in Fraser’s Mag: “Howard was the great, big huge bear, and Charlie was the middle sized bear, and I was the little, small wee bear, and the baby was to be the goldilocks.”
While this word was mainly used to denote blond hair, it also was used to describe various yellow-flowered plants, particularly buttercups, beginning around 1578. However, this usage has largely fallen out of favor, with the narrative of the golden-haired interloper taking over popular imagination.
Just Enough
Since the mid-20th century, “Goldilocks” has been used to designate a situation, effect, or circumstances as ideal, particularly when it comes to providing the most favorable balance between contrasting or opposing factors: Goldilocks choice, Goldilocks effect, Goldilocks principle, etc. The word usually appears capitalized, referencing the name of the girl in the fairy tale, and not a general nickname.
The fairy tale is often further referenced in association with the name “Goldilocks,” as in this 1949 example from the Sewanee Review: “The writer may include or leave out too much and so distort his vision. If successful the writer will find that he has made Goldilocks’ choice of a gruel neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.”
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Since then, the term “Goldilocks” has been used with a specific meaning in a number of fields, including astronomy and economics. In astronomy, it designates a zone around a star in which conditions are thought to be suitable for planets to support life, being neither too hot nor too cold (or to describe a planet in such a zone). In economics, it describes the state of a national economy that is neither expanding too fast nor contracting, but displays ideal conditions of steady growth, low inflation, low interest rates, and more.
There you have it — the journey of “Goldilocks” from a gleaming physical descriptor to a figurative meaning of perfect averageness.
Forgetting a word or phrase that you know you’re familiar with can be frustrating, but it happens to everyone. This phenomenon is often referred to metaphorically as something being on the “tip of your tongue,” but the technical term is “lethologica.”
Forgetting a word or phrase that you know you’re familiar with can be frustrating, but it happens to everyone. This phenomenon is often referred to metaphorically as something being on the “tip of your tongue.” It also has a technical name, “lethologica,” meaning “the inability to remember a particular word or name.”
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That term was coined in the early 20th century from the Greek words lēthē, meaning “forgetfulness,” and logos, meaning “word.” While it’s not usually any more bothersome than forgetting a name or stumbling in the middle of a sentence, it’s ubiquitous enough to be considered a universal experience. Let’s learn more about what’s happening on the “tip of your tongue.”
Lethologica Is Universal
Tip-of-your-tongue lapses can happen to anyone, regardless of language or culture. According to a 2011 paper on lethologica that appeared in the journal Memory & Cognition, around 90% of speakers surveyed (across many languages) described the phenomenon using wording similar to the “tip of your tongue” metaphor in English.
Spanish: Lo tengo en la punta de la lengua (I have it on the tip of my tongue)
Italian: Ce l’ho sulla punta della lingua (I have it on the tip of my tongue)
French: Sur le bout de la langue (On the tip of my tongue)
Turkish: Dilimin ucunda (On the tip of my tongue)
German: Es liegt mir auf der Zunge (It’s lying on my tongue)
Greek: Είναι κάτω από τη γλώσσα μου (It’s under my tongue)
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What Causes Lethologica?
While it happens to everyone, lethologica is a complex neurological event involving many factors that aren’t completely understood. Scientists believe one contributing element could be sleep levels, as lethologica tends to happen more often to those who are tired. Other factors might include how well the memory was encoded (the base memory of the word) and interference from other memories, which can cause confusion.
Studies have also found a positive correlation with age. Older adults might experience lethologica up to once a day, while younger adults experience it around once a week. The average native English-speaking American adult knows around 42,000 dictionary words; it’s only natural that some are forgotten from time to time.
How Can Lethologica Be Resolved?
Unfortunately, there is no “cure” for this pesky phenomenon. Typically, as time passes (or if a first letter or a part of the word is remembered), the “lost” word will finally come to mind. The good news is that these events are short-term, universal experiences and don’t usually indicate serious cognitive problems. (However, if they become more persistent or frequent, that might be a sign of another condition, and you should consult a doctor.)
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Researchers also have found that once lethologica occurs when trying to remember a certain word, it is more likely to happen again later with that same word. This is because our brains respond to associations that we make with new information. After an episode of lethologica, the brain likely associates the “lost” word with the event of losing it, making the same situation more likely to reoccur. And researchers have found no evidence that continuing to dig deeper for the word helps. In fact, doing so might actually make the situation worse, causing you to draw a blank the next time you’re trying to remember it.
The best thing to do is move on — often, the missing word will spontaneously pop back into your head. Continuing to scour your brain for the right word might turn you into a loganamnosis, or someone who is obsessed with recalling a word that has been forgotten.
How Does Lethologica Differ from Lethonomia?
“Lethologica” describes the phenomenon of forgetting any word, while “lethonomia” (with the Greek root onoma, meaning “name”) refers to the inability to remember a proper name, another tip-of-your-tongue event. This can happen at any time, whether you’re watching a television show or unexpectedly running into someone in the street. It’s another short-term impairment that usually randomly resolves itself.
“Lethonomia” is a newer term — it doesn’t appear yet in most common dictionaries, as “lethologica” does — but both words were inspired by Greek mythology. The word for “forgetfulness,” lēthē, was taken from the River Lethe, a river in Hades whose water made the dead forget their life on Earth. While tip-of-your-tongue events might not be as serious as life in the underworld, the resulting sense of empty-mindedness might make you feel as if you just drank from the Lethe.
Why does an owl say “hoo hoo” in English but “bu-eong-bu-eong” in Korean? While a cat in France makes the same sounds as a cat in Germany, the depiction of those sounds, both written and vocalized, is interpreted very differently.
Why does an owl say “hoo hoo” in English but bu-eong-bu-eong in Korean? It all comes down to phonology, which is “the branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds within a language or between different languages.” While a cat in France makes the same sounds as a cat in Germany, the depiction of those sounds, both written and vocalized, is interpreted very differently.
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Research also suggests that the more connected a culture is with an animal, the more versions of sounds they will have for it. Could this be why in English dogs can “bark,” “woof,” “yap,” and “ruff,” but mice can only “squeak”? Let’s explore more of the onomatopoeia of animal sounds around the world.
Bees
English: “Buzz”
Since the late 14th century, “buzzing” has been used in English to denote the noise that bees and other flying insects make as they fly by. The “z” sound made by pollinators is also reflected in other languages around the world, such as in the Arabiczzzu zzzu and the Russianzh-zh-zh. However, there are a few outliers, including Japan’s unique (but just as charming) boon boon.
In English, we’ve been using the word “meow” for the sound a cat makes since the mid-19th century, but even before then, similar spellings of “miaow,” “miau,” and “meaw” were in print. This animal noise is one of the most consistent across all languages — most of the world agrees on the “m,” followed by a similar vowel sound. Some languages also have words for purring, which is called ronron in French and schnurren in German.
This simple onomatopoeia has been used in English since the mid-16th century, and across the world, most cultures agree on the noise a cow makes. One interesting exception is the Urdu language of South Asia, which uses the wordbaeh to describe a cow’s sound.
“Woof” has been in use since the days of Old English, but it was first related to weaving wefts of fabric. It wasn’t until the early 19th century that it gained a new purpose as an onomatopoeia for a dog’s bark. While the spelling of the onomatopoeia can be quite different, the repetitive sound of a bark is consistent across most languages, including in Greek (ghav ghav)and Arabic (haw haw or hab hab).
In most English-speaking countries, “croak” is the traditional sound of a frog — only American frogs say “ribbit.” This might have originated in Hollywood when the recorded sound chosen for a frog wasn’t a low, hoarse croak, but the higher-pitched sound of the Pacific tree frog. (The word “ribbit” was coined by writers for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.) But throughout the rest of the world, the most mimicked frog sound is a hoarse, croaking noise.
In English, we call the sound that a horse makes a “neigh.” This comes from the Old English word hnægan, which was probably an imitative sound. However, there are other words to describe this sound, including “whinny” or “heehaw” (also used for other barnyard animals, such as donkeys and mules).
“Squeak” comes from the Middle Swedish word skväka, meaning “to squeak, croak.” It entered English in the late 14th century and has been used to describe both creaking doors and scurrying mice ever since. The worldwide translation of a mouse’s squeak is varied, ranging from the Hebrew cleek to the Italian squitt-squitt — no two languages seem to totally agree on the sound of the little rodent.
“Oink” wasn’t used in English to describe the noises of a pig until the early 20th century. This word is of imitative origin, but to other language speakers, it might seem rather unusual to imitate a pig’s grunt as “oink.” This is one of the most varied animal sounds across the world, varying from the Swedishnöff nöff to the Polishchrum chrum. However, languages across the world seem to be in agreement on one thing: A pig likes to repeat itself.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo” is arguably the most bizarre noise on this list. It’s an imitative phrase that has been used since the mid-16th century to describe the distinctive noise of a rooster (also called a “cock”) crowing.
The bleat of a sheep is a seemingly universal sound. Even in Latin, the word bee meant “sound made by a sheep.” Most modern languages also agree on a “b” or “m” sound to begin this noise.
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