Terminology | 2009.10.05
'Yarooh!', he ejaculated | David McKie
Comic-strip writers invented a wealth of linguistic terms to bring their art form to life
For several centuries the English language managed quite well without the word "splat!". True, it cropped up here and there in the 19th century as a short form of splatter, but it hardly became common currency until the rise of the comic. For as the Guardian\'s recent series of comic reprints reminded us, that art form bred a wealth of terms which linguisticians class as onomatopoeic terminologies, such as "splat!", "zap!" and "wham!", along with my favourite: "kerpow!".
This prefix ker- was a clever device to evoke that spilt second before fist lands on jaw, or whatever. It wasn\'t until I sought it out in the Cassell Dictionary of Slang that I realised just how many variations comic-strip writers had contrived here, from "kerbam!" (a sudden noise or sharp shock) and "kerbang!" (a sudden sharp noise or explosion) to "kerwhop!" (a solid body falling on to a solid surface) and "kerwoosh!" (indicating speedy movement). Some of these definitions are surprisingly precise. "Kerslosh!", for instance, indicates movement through a wet or soft substance, "or the falling of a solid object into such substance, eg viscous mud"; while "kersplat!" indicates a fall on to a soft surface, "especially with concomitant mess, eg a stuntman\'s dive into a stall of soft fruit and vegetables".
Few of these, it has to be said, found their way into the Guardian\'s largely decorous collection, and especially not into Tammy and Bunty for girls, which eschewed even modest violence. Even Whizzer and Chips from the 1970s largely confined themselves to such ancient simplicities as "biff!", "bop!" and "sock!". Perhaps it was Dandy , with its tale of Winker Watson, "the world famous schoolboy prankster", in which, thanks to one of Winker\'s wheezes, grumpy form master Clarence Creep was angrily chased off the page by a rampant headmaster ("ooyah! b-but! ouch!"), that made me think of another source of onomatopoeic invention where, for once, we know the inventor\'s name. Winker\'s school was Greytowers. Had his parents, perhaps, failed to get him into that famous institution Greyfriars, which along with St John\'s and Cliff House (a girls\' school) was the scene of so many of the schoolday adventure tales of Charles Hamilton, the most famous of whose many pseudonyms was Frank Richards?
In fact, these stories, confected long before the general use of "wham!", "splat!" or anything starting with ker-, make no great use of onomatopoeic expression outside the famous call of Billy Bunter, who on every other page seems to utter the cry "Yarooh!"; which of course is hooray spelled backwards. One notices, though, that this word can be used to convey precise gradations of pain. The level of Bunter\'s agony is indicated by the number of "o"s that Richards provides. "Yarooh!" may be enough for some minor chastisement, but on other occasions: "\'Yarooh! Whooop! Help!\' roared Bunter. \'I say, you fellows – whoop! Oh crikey! Yarooooh!\'" Where girls are involved, Richards normally sees little need for such devices, though in one epic confrontation, Billy\'s sister Bessie emits the cry "Woooooooooooogh."
It is notable how when Richards seeks to whip up the tension he turns to words other than "said". In Call Mr Quelch, the first book I picked up at random, Bunter has gasped, roared and hooted before he\'s allowed a "said". The masters thunder; boys, especially Bunter, growl, gurgle, drawl, mumble and stammer. And ejaculate: a word that would not have had quite the same implications then as it tends to do now. Richards sometimes has a character expostulate and even, if I remember, vouchsafe, but ejaculation is much more the default mode at Greyfriars. "\'Oh, my hat!\' ejaculated Bob Cherry. Bunter chortled. \'Rather a lark on Quelch, what?\' he gurgled." And again, at what Richards calls footer: "The leather lodged. \'Oh, my hat,\' ejaculated Squiff. The practice had been going on for some time, but this was the first shot that had beaten Samson Quincy Iffley Field. \'Goal!\' ejaculated Bob Cherry."
The late ES Turner , social historian, points out in one of his books that Conan Doyle, who prided himself on his writing style, uses "he ejaculated" three times in one Sherlock Holmes story. But Richards at one point gets two ejaculations into a single sentence: "\'Wha-a-t?\' ejaculated Bob Cherry, surprised by the dismal ejaculation from the other end." What a solecism! Almost as bad as using "kerflip!" for a stuntman\'s dive into a stall of soft fruit and vegetables.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/27/yarooh-he-ejaculated
