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Pooh-Bah
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When a person in the US sustains a painful but not excruciating injury, he is likely to verbalize his distress with "ouch!" or "ow." These utterances don't strike me as especially onomatopoeic, so I surmise that other dialects and languages have different but comparable expressions. What is your equivalent of "ouch" ?
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Carpal Tunnel
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TEd
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English-speaking Canadians also say "ouch" but usually with the Canadian pronunciation of the "ou". In Italian, it's something like "EYE-ya" (phonetically). There is actually a web page on this: http://www.diseaseworld.com/ouch/ouch.htm It includes sounds, too. (Your post is a bit serendipitous - I just found this the other day!)
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When I've seen this in Spanish and Italian, it's usually something like "Aii!" (pronounced like "eye"). Oddly enough, when I lived in Italy, Spain and Colombia, I found that the more the local language dominated my mental space, the more likely I was to say "Ai" rather than "Ouch."
So perhaps it's not onomatopoeic, but simply relates to the sounds a language has easily available to it - ouch would be a bit difficult to spell in Spanish (perhaps "auch," but Spanish words never end that way), and very difficult to do in Italian (couldn't even guess - Bean, emanuela, anyone?).
And what would be an onomatopoeic interjection in this case? It would have to depend on the injury, I suppose...
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very difficult to do in ItalianI'm not sure you could spell it in Italian, because the only way to spell our "ch" sound is to follow a c with either an e or an i. And then there's the words-almost-always-end-in-a-vowel-sound rule. So the letter following the "c" which makes it say "ch" must be pronounced, as well. So you'd get something like "auci" ("Ouch-ee"). 
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Yep, Hyla, "ai!" in Portuguese too.
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enthusiast
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ditto for French (but I believe it is spelled aie)
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Always liked the French cry "M'aidez! M'aidez!" ("Help me! Help me!")
which the English-speaking world adapted corruptedto "Mayday! Mayday!"
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¡Ay! ¡Ayayay! ¡Ay de mí! ¡Ay mamá! ¡Ay Diós! ¡Ay Diosito! ¡Ay Diosito santo! ¡Hijo! ¡Híjole! ¡Hijo de la! ¡Hijo de la fregada! Close your eyes, Jackie, blue smoke coming out of this one! ¡Hijo de la chingada! ¡Ya basta! 
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What is your equivalent of "ouch" ?
Based on what I see of sporting activity on TV, I'd say in Oz it's pretty consistently "Oh F*ck!"
Hev
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Pooh-Bah
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>"ouch!" or "ow"
Unusually, you can count those of us in the UK in with the ouches and ows unless we're replacing the expression with expletives.
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Could be onomatopoeic in origin. Till the seventeenth century it would be pronounced ooch, which has the vowel of the more natural howler-monkey exclamation we make on finding something is too hot.
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> Could be onomatopoeic in origin.
That's right, it clearly has some influence otherwise all these expletives would not be as related as they are.
In Germany cliche exclamation of pain is 'Au-aa!', which is even turned into a telly-tubby-like substantive with little children, like so:
'Hast du dir ein Ow-aa gemacht?'
BTW, I've noticed that 'Youch' is also used in English, usually to express something that doesn't physically hurt, e.g.:
'Youch, that phone bill is gonna hurt!'
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Pooh-Bah
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Thanks for the link, Bean!
I looked up "ouch" and only found this explanation for the etymology: [<G autsch] . So, can somebody please elucidate on the German? BY - I suspect that this is the same word you mentioned; can you give us its etymology?
I was also interested to learn of another meaning of "ouch":
a clasp. From nousche, a necklace or a collar, whence ME nouche, whence (a nouche being apprehended as an ouche) the later ME ouche, whence the obsol E ouch, a brooch, a clasp
or - the socket of a precious stone, an ornament... The original sense is "socket of a gem," but it is commonly used for gem or ornament. The true form is nouche, but the initial n is often dropped ... a buckle, clasp, bracelet, ... MHG, nusche, nuske, OHG. nusca, nuscha a buckle, clasp, or brooch for a cloak. Prob. Ult. Of Celtic origin; cf. Irish nase, a tie, chain, ring ...
I clasped my napron shut with a napple-shaped nouche.
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(quick aside to Hev.....)
I'm starting to think that that's the sum total of Glenn McGrath's vocabulary!
PS: WHAT ABOUT OUR BOY GILCHRIST HEY!!! 100 runs / 90 balls.
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sum total of Glenn McGrath's vocabulary
P'raps he's just a victim of the media, the only time they ever show him is when he's saying that. Really, he's quite articulate ... oh ha ha... I mean, I heard him say "Fanks for me award" at the Allan Border medal last year...
And I noticed you're prepared to share OUR boy Adam now. That's very gracious of me, er ... I mean, you. Singing the "Go Aussie Go" theme in my head...
Hev
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The French Québecois would most likely say A-YOY (the A pronounce like the a in at) rather than aie when hurt. That or OW. BUT I have noticed that persons who are taught French by a person from France will most likely say aie.
I don’t know if this makes sense when I say it but aie is too pointy for the French Québecois method of speaking.
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"M'aidez! M'aidez!"
Um, wof. chou, I've never heard that. Maybe it is old French that I am not aware of.
When you are yelling for help you scream "À l'aide, à l'aide." or "au secours, au secours"
M'aidez can't be said alone like that. It has to be followed by vous because of the conjugation. Also, with the M in front, it is more of a question than a cry for help. M'aidez-vous = Are you helping me?
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...or maybe it's just another Urban Myth? Seem to come up with a lot of 'em. Just gullible, I guess. Ask me about where Premarin got its name, someday.
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Premarin the menopause pill??? Now why would you know about that? 
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According to our encyclopedia entry on SOS, "mayday" is used as a
distress signal for aviators because it approximates the French term
"m'aider", meaning "come help me!" The term came into use between the
years 1925-30.
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> Sparteye spies: the etymology: [<G autsch]
Yep. 'Autsch!' is one of the standard written forms for 'ouch' in German, which is pronouced much the same as in English (with 'Au!' much the same as 'Ow!'). I guess the written form was really taken from the German's crack at onomatopoeia. It's all pretty inexact at describing the sounds uttered when you wedge your fingers in a door by accident though, eh.
Has anyone ever come across a list of the written forms of human vocal exclamations before, btw?
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>Has anyone ever come across a list of the written forms of human vocal exclamations before, btw?
Yup, but it is in French...l'encyclopédie des bruits / The encyclopedia of sounds. It also incorporates many other types of sound that are not vocally created.
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Ask me about where Premarin got its name, someday.
Is it someday yet?
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Premarin
Pre_ _ _ _ _ / ma_ _ _ / _ _ in _
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Yuck, doc_, I wonder if I'll ever have to take it?!
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Strine =======> "shit"
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I never say "Ouch!"
I say "S__t!"
Or, when at school, "Agggggh!"
Best regards,
Dub
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Premarin
Pre_ _ _ _ _ / ma_ _ _ / _ _ in _
Was that an answer? Should I ask the ASp?
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"F... f... f... f... FAROUT!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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I am not a big swearer but somebody in the office today told me they know when I hit my finger (oh, for those who don't know, on Jan 4th this year, I tore off the top of my left index past the fist knuckle)Apparently, they can hear me yell "tabarnac" from one end of the office to the other. Tabarnac is slang for tabernacle - the heavy duty French swearing always uses religious words. So now, I know what I say when I hurt myself 
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Bel, that is good enough for me. If you screamed "TABARNAC"
after you tore off the top of your left index past the fist knuckle, by golly, that is emphatic enough for me. The next time something of that nature happens to me, God forbid, I shall scream "TABARNAC" in honor of the French.
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French swearing uses religious words; English seems to delight in bodily function words; and somewhere long ago, I read that Polish swearing uses disease words (not sure how reliable the source was, but it said that the strongest swear word in POlish was the word for cholera) -- could make for an interesting study!
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Pooh-Bah
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Premarin
Pre_ _ _ _ _ / ma_ _ _ / _ _ in _
May I buy a vowel, doc? Or is it somebody else's turn to spin?
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Pooh-Bah
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Jumpin' blue jaybirds, Bel! I don't know if there is invective strong enough to suit the accidental loss of a body part. It makes me cringe just to think about it ... is your poor little fingy OK now?
And who else besides me tends, when things are really, really, dire, to say nothing at all? [dark-glowering-storm-clouds-amidst-the-eerie-silence e]
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buy a vowel
I googled it, Sparts.
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Doc C and Faldage have it lettered correctly, at least according to my present understanding. When I was an extraordinarily naive first-year medical student buying my first stethoscope from Malin's Ethical Pharmacy on Fourteenth Street (south side) between First and Second Avenue, I saw on the shelf behind me a display of tubes of PreMarIn Vaginal Cream. Blushed quietly to myself and decided it must be a contraceptive cream and that the name had to come from " Pre-Marital Intercourse". Mused for a moment about how bold manufacturers were getting (this is the Sixties, remember, the earliest days of the Sexual Revolution)... It wasn't until years later that I put together the generic name ("conjugated equine estrogens") and the source - pregnant mares' ur ine - and smiled, and blushed quietly to myself again at my innocence. And it wasn't until more years had passed that it occurred to me that perhaps I had no real reason to accept the second explanation as having any greater validity than my original one... (except, of course, the Premarin isn't a contraceptive) Just to be provocative: is that _really_ where the name comes from? Has it been "verified by competent authority," as Pooh-Bah said? As I realized, just because something makes sense doesn't necessarily mean it's correct! :-) EDIT: For another look at that last statement, read "The Nine Mile Walk" by Harry Kemelman.
For a very abbreviated review, try http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8462/ninemile.htm
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The Indonesian word is aduh, pronounced something like ah dooooooo, the second syllable being drawn out according to the depth of anguish being experienced. This is, by the way, the root for the verb mengaduhi, to complain.
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