Posted under Tags
Shouldn't onomatopoeia implicate sound_effects based on the current descriptions and topic #14301?
sound_effects : "The tag is mostly used for written sound effects in images on Danbooru."
onomatopoeia : "When a sound effect is written or spoken out."
(Previous related topics: topic #14301 and topic #13835)
It should have been aliased honestly.
Other onomatopoeic predicament is instead whether we can use onomatopoeia as a blanket term for all japanese ideophones; plenty of them don't convey sounds such as zawa_(onomatopoeia) and menacing_(jojo)
I still think they should be aliased, it doesn't make sense for us to keep them distinct when in 99% of the cases they're the same thing and in the remaining 1% they can be found by pool #1537.
nonamethanks said:
pool #1537.
Most of those are not 'sound' effects either
I'm fine with an alias as well, in it's current state the difference, from what I understand from the topics, is that if it's an unconventional sfx (pool #1537) it's sound_effects and not onomatopoeia, and on all other cases it's both sound_effects and onomatopoeia. And from their wiki descriptions only, they are the same thing.
ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
It should have been aliased honestly.
Other onomatopoeic predicament is instead whether we can use onomatopoeia as a blanket term for all japanese ideophones; plenty of them don't convey sounds such as zawa_(onomatopoeia) and menacing_(jojo)
They actually do.
Your standard "gogogogo" (repeat as many times as necessary) sound effect describes the sound of rumbling or a distant roar. It is also appropriated for use in scenes to convey a foreboding sense of doom (or a general 'menacing' aura), often as a backdrop to a villain character making an appearance or plotting. This is very similar to the use of the "scare chord" in English language works.
The JoJo series is the one most famous for using "gogogo" this way, though this use isn't Jojo exclusive and pops up all the time in various works. More often than not, "gogogo" is just used as a rumbling sound (seen a lot in scenes with earthquakes or storms), as mentioned previously.
"Zawa" meanwhile describes the noisy sound of a crowd. It is derived from 騒がしい ("sawagashii", "noisy"/"rowdy"). When spelled as "zawa..." with the ellipses (and usually in small font sizes), it can also convey low volume noise such as the uneasy mumbling of a crowd as a reaction to a disquieting scene or someone doing something shocking.
Fukumoto Nobuyuki often uses "zawa..." sound effect in this sense. He has a distinctive personal flair when using it this way though. First is that he will usually use at least two "zawa..." (this use is idiosyncratic to the point that a doubled "Zawa... zawa..." is often taken as a memetic reference to Fukumoto's work). Second, the "zawas" will often be in large font and are the focal point of a scene. Third, the "zawa..." is often used in a scene of absolute silence, where nobody is speaking and no noises is being made (unlike "zawa..." used in most other works where it is at least associated with a crowd mumbling or some other ongoing low-intensity noise).
This use of "zawa..." can be translated as "uneasy silence", and people will often describe "zawa" this way when trying to explain this SFX in the context of a Fukumoto work. This is an adequate translation, but doesn't quite capture what the SFX really 'feels' to a native speaker. More precisely, it describes the 'metaphorical' sound of one's thoughts being drowned out. By the pressure of the scene, of the crowd's collective trepidation, or even one thinking and overthinking things over in one's mind with multiple lines of thoughts and worries drowning out the primary coherent one. Some people might have describe such a feeling as like having multiple voices speaking in one's head (not unlike a mild case of psychosis), or having a tinnitus-like white noise drowning out one's hearing.
The Western equivalent for the above is to depict this as echoing thoughts in the character's 'head'. Either their own voice, or the imagined voices of others. Or by using a white noise effect to drown out the background into some kind of 'noisy silence'.
(On a related note, the "zawa" SFX is also sometimes used for other cases of white noise, including those not associated with humans. The most common being the sound of rustling leaves in the wind.)
TL;DR: "Gogogo" is the Japanese SFX for rumbling. It can also be used like a Japanese version of the scare chord to add a "menacing" atmosphere to a scene or character. It is not necessarily a reference to Jojo (unless styled in a similar manner).
"Zawa" is the Japanese SFX for crowd noises. It can also be used as a white noise SFX, as well as the 'mental' noise during particularly intense scenes to add tension to a scene. It is not necessarily a reference to Fukumoto Nobuyuki's works, but a doubled "Zawa... zawa..." (or more copies) in large font used for scenes of otherwise complete silence generally is.
BUR #5640 has been approved by @evazion.
create alias onomatopoeia -> sound_effects
As discussed on this topic, if anyone has a better idea please go ahead.
Also looks like this topic has been blessed with one of NNescio's wall of texts :)
ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
Most of those are not 'sound' effects either
Those are generally implied to be sound effects. From context. Which is to say, the position of the SFX text and the choice of font used.
Generally speaking, most examples of the Unconventional SFX pool involves replacing the usual SFX of an action with either:
1) The name or related descriptor of a person doing the action. This generally subs in the place of the usual "pops" or "skulks in" or "ta-da" SFX. e.g. post #4551769. (heh, subs), post #4416570 (subbing in for a "ploik-ploik" sfx)
2) The name or related descriptor of a person whom the action is performed on. e.g. post #2950387 (the inferred SFX is *boinnnng*) and post #3323406 (subbing for an *oof!*)
3) A direct or indirect object involved with the action. So someone getting slashed might get a "SWORDED" sfx, and someone getting shot might get, say, "MACHINEGUNNED". e.g. post #3267055 (here it also subs in for a tada SFX).
4) An adjective or adjectival noun describing the action. e.g. post #2749434, #2471431 (both examples of "ELEGANCE" subbing in for the usual sparkly SFX).
5) A description of the action itself. e.g. post #3618562 (where *BOXING* is used instead of the expected *KA-POW*).
I can't see them as the exact same thing... In the search sound_effects translated, you can see plenty of varied sound effects (although most of them are NSFW). They don't have the exact same purpose of onomatopoeia like menacing (jojo) or dodododo, which is not only to explain or portray a sound effect but also to give a general vibe/mood/tone to the scene. Maybe an implication is better.
mongirlfan said:
I can't see them as the exact same thing... In the search sound_effects translated, you can see plenty of varied sound effects (although most of them are NSFW). They don't have the exact same purpose of onomatopoeia like menacing (jojo) or dodododo, which is not only to explain or portray a sound effect but also to give a general vibe/mood/tone to the scene. Maybe an implication is better.
I honestly don't understand what's the difference between them, like I randomly selected two of your posts and I still don't see what could be the difference.
post #4082519 (nsfw, onomatopoeia)
post #4238706 (nsfw, sound_effects)
No matter how much you want to justify a separation, people are going to use them interchangeably because, at the end of the day, nobody cares about the distinction.
Yeah, sure, technically slapping noises are a sound effect while "GOGOGOGO" is an onomatopoeia. And yet menacing_(jojo) sound_effects has more results than menacing_(jojo) onomatopoeia. Same thing for dodododo sound_effects vs dodododo onomatopoeia.
Nobody cares about this distinction, certainly nobody has ever cared enough to bother gardening these tags. Keeping them separate just means people will use either according to their preference, and we'll have the same exact concept split into two tags because, once again, we prefer to endlessly argue over technicalities nobody cares about over making these tags usable.
Think about this for a second: do you really think someone would ever think about the difference between a transliterated and an imaginary sound effect when searching for them? If they wanted to see uncommon stuff like that they'd use the pool mentioned above, they wouldn't go through half a hour of theoretical mental arguments just to figure out which tag to use between two functionally identical ones.
Updated
ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
NNescio since you are knowledgeable in this topic what would you say about go-to examples illustrating the difference such as "しーんと"?, Can onomatopoeia be used as an umbrella term?
This is somewhat... complicated to answer.
Short answer: Yes from a linguistics point of view; no for Danbooru's purposes.
Long answer:
The key point is the use of と, which turns "しーんと" into an adverbial onomatopoeia (in most use cases). So most of the time しーんと is no longer used to describe a sound effect, but to function as an adverb modifying a verb. So, しーんと used in spoken text most of the time would neither be a sound effects, nor an onomatopoeia (by Danbooru's current definition of the term). The main exception being when it occurs outside speech bubbles, where it would then function as a sound effect describing an action done "silently", or as an implied verb しーんと(する) for people quieting noun (and the associated SFX).
The bare しーん without the と would qualify as an onomatopoeia though, even when used inside text bubbles (most of the time). In spoken speech, this is probably somebody reacting to a bad joke, similar to someone saying "crickets" (to imitate the 'sound' of [awkward] silence) in English. Outside, this is used like a *SILENCE* sfx (yeah, kinda sounds like an oxymoron, but that's what it is), or again, someone writing *crickets* as an SFX in a comic. On a personal note, I've used *crickets* as a translation for "shi(iiiiii)n" before, like in post #4537083.
The exact origins of the しーん SFX is unclear (and a matter of intense debate among some circles). Anyway, I believe it was Tezuka Osamu who popularized it as a manga SFX (especially in the しーん form with the long vowel mark in the middle), from where it sort of 'leaked ' into normal vocabulary. How he derived it, nobody knows exactly.
But the use of しん as 'onomatopoeic' silence has also occurred before in older poems before, even in works dating back to the early 19th century. This use is usually taken as being derived from 森 ("forest", but can also mean "silent" or "gloomy" by way of association with how silent/shady things tend to be deep inside a temperate forest). Some other theories include 寂 ("silent", "lonely"), and 深 ("deep", "dark"). (Note, all three kanji can be pronounced "shin") Though generally most 'literary' sources appear to prefer the "森" explanation.
I have also heard another suggestion of the modern use of しーん being derived from the sound of blood flowing through one's bloodstream, that one can hear during periods of absolute silence. Another mentions something about the sound of water droplets being split on the ground by wind. I can't quite find attestations to this 'use' though.
But anyhow, while nobody knows where exactly しーん came from, it would seem like it's either derived from a sound itself, or an adjective/noun meaning "silent" or "gloomy"/"dark". This makes it somewhat analogous to writing *silence*, *crickets* or *pin drop* in English.
Though, as a general note, use of onomatopoeia tends to be far more productive in Japanese compared to English. People use onomatopoeia all the time in casual speech, and will often use them as adverbs by adding と or even verbs with する. Some like しーん take とする, and usually these are the more 'onomatopoeic' ones that are less absorbed into normal lexicon (the distinction is kinda like using an *SFX* directly as a verb in English, like say "blammed", versus tacking on "go" like in "went boom"). People can also use similar constructions in English, but being too 'liberal' with it tend to make people look at you oddly.
That said... English does have a lot of onomatopoeic words derived from sounds, but most of them are baked inside verbs. So, "bleat", "bark", "whinny", "whine", and so on. Words like "slash" and "slice" also have a likely onomatopoeic origin. A lot of "sn-" words like sneeze and snot and sniffle are associated with noises made by the nose. Then there's a couple other words like "sneak" and "slink" and "crawl" and "creep" (and a few other "cr-" words) that are associated with the noise/motion of a snake or some reptile moving. These ones are often used to describe "moving silently", and... hey! Kinda similar to how しーん got derived from, eh?
Though generally, most of the English onomatopoeic words were sort of 'fossilized' a long time ago, with a of pronunciation changes over time (that's why 'bleat' no longer sounds like a sheep, well, bleating) so most people don't really associate these sounds with onomatopoeia unless it is explicitly being used as onomatopoeia, like say, a cartoonist writing down a large *SLASH* and using it as onomatopoeia for a sword swing.
And related to the above, we also tend to treat Japanese onomatopoeia similarly on Danbooru. If it's used in a middle of a sentence as a verb or adverb or some other normal "parts of speech", most users don't class them as onomatopoeia or sound effects (even though linguists may classify all of these as onomatopoeia anyway). But if it's used outside speech bubbles as a visible SFX effect, or inside speech bubbles as somebody miming a sound (or "unsound", in the case of silence), then it gets classified as onomatopoeia and/or sound effect.
--
Now, this long digression aside, going back to the original point of this thread, that is the difference between onomatopoeia and sound_effects... the key distinction is the "written or spoken out" part. Which is to say "onomatopoeia" are by definition "verbal", while "sound effects" are not necessarily so. So that's why most of the Unconventional SFX pool are tagged sound_effect but not onomatopoeia, because there's no direct verbal representation (verbal imitation) of the sound. Instead it is "substituted" by another word acting as a metaphor of sorts for an implied SFX. This "degree of separation" is what I conjecture to cause people to tag sound_effect but not onomatopoeia.
Outside the pool, however, things are a bit of a mess, with people tagging one of the two somewhat semi-randomly. The key issue I believe here is the "nature of the medium". Most SFX (on Danbooru) occurs in manga uploads, so the SFX are—by nature—written out. So they technically qualify as verbal, in this case "written out", by the author even if it's not spoken or written out by the characters.
So... most of the time, as nonamethanks noted, there isn't much of a functional difference between the two, other than in Unconventional SFX . There have been issues raised in past threads before of non-verbal SFX like those found in video with sound, as well as non-onomatopoeic SFX (like say the use of a character's name instead of a more common SFX, though here there's usually an implied *pop* or *tada* SFX), but no examples has been found of the former yet, and most examples of the latter can be found within Unconventional SFX. So it would appear that the distinction between onomatopoeia and sound_effects isn't quite... necessary.
As such, I see two options. The easiest is to just alias onomatopoeia to sound_effects, as have been previously suggested.
The second is to distinguish further between the two tags. My suggestion is to limit "when a sound effect is written or spoken out" to within the in-universe setting, that is, what is being spoken by the characters (or speakers, radio, etc.) and what is written/printed down in writing within the universe. And also visual/physical manifestation of onomatopoeia within the universe, such as by use of Doraemon's Voice Thickener gizmo or some similar effect (this includes meta jokes when SFX written down by the author visually manifests in-universe).
This excludes the general use of SFX by the author to describe a sound verbally to the readers, as this written-down SFX is not "written down" within the 'universe' of the comic itself.
For the second approach, the wiki for onomatopoeia needs to be edited to reflect this suggested change, and posts need to be gardened to distinguish between onomatopoeia and sound_effects. I am... not sure whether the second approach is worth this trouble (especially since people might still get confused and then 'mistag' in the future), and this proposed distinction probably wouldn't matter for most people (aside from, say, people learning Japanese, or translators looking up samples for how SFX are translated).
So... I think I'd lean slightly toward the first approach (the alias), but since people have objected to this in the past, I will refrain from voting for now.
Edit: Reconsidered, voting yes on the alias for now. Don't think disambiguating them is worthwhile unless there is more interest for this.
Updated
Onomatopoeia are basically stylized sound effects that have more purposes other than just informing the sound effect to the reader. Every onomatopoiea is a sound effect, but not every sound effect is an onomatopoiea. That’s how I see it and why I think an implication is better than an alias for this case. And I’m sure users would be interested in search for these stylized sound effects, which wouldn’t be possible with an alias.
Updated
Thanks for the explanations. I mean, I'm okay with either implication or an alias.
But I also think there'll be mistags if it's implicated, because of people that don't know/care about their difference, and also both wikis needs a better explanation of their difference, maybe a direct link to NNescio's comment, I dunno.
My stance is:
The bulk update request #5640 (forum #187052) has been approved by @evazion.
