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This can become a general thread, but I'm stuck on a word and it's driving me crazy not being able to find it.
What I want to know is, what is the name for the sound an eagle or hawk makes when it's high in the sky? I've looked it up on Google and though I'm not the first to ask the question, nobody seems to have had anything but silly or at best banal answers ( I know it's a flight call, but what's it's name?) There must be a word, it's too beautiful and atmospheric a sound not to have a name, but what is it? :(
I might go and ask on an American site too. I bet there's a word in Native American.
Comments
'keening' came to mind but I'm not sure.
If you could get hold of some info on ornithology, there might be a description of it.
I think I know what you're after. You want to convey that haunting, unreachable, almost alien quality and the sense of distance and height.
Actually, EG, I think that's the closest I have seen to what I'm looking for. "Screech" is too harsh and "keening" reminds me of funerals, so it's too miserable. It is more of a whistle than a screech.
It's a wow, just listen to that sort of sound.
Usually accompanied with words like: screech, scream, cry, call, trill, raspy descending, haunting, etc..
I'm glad I started it, Betsy. I knew there'd be someone amongst you clever lot who could give me the word I wanted...two, in fact, because I still like EG's word, too. I hope someone else can use the same thread to find a word they need!
Thanks Jediya and EG. Thanks, everyone! :)
This is a moot point. Apparently there were many words in use in the general population that just hadn't been recorded in words... ones which scholars in particular would not have used, but which were in use among the masses as it were. He may not have actually made up as many as has been indicated.
At the beginning this has rather a good sound of an eagle.
It's a hard sound to describe. Could there be a word in Tolkein? Don't know what this occurs to me.
Maybe you should try thinking up a description instead of a word?
It is presumed you sought a word to provoke implicit comprehension in your readers ear. As has already been illustrated in other folks suggestions, there is tendency for different heads to interpret the same event in alternate manner.
To select an onomatopoeic reference for such a beautiful sound is likely to fail the effect you desire to create. Unless you are writing a factual biography, the intention is to provoke the illusions to which that call alludes. It is the timbre of the querulous cry that, I imagine, you wish to shiver through ones spine or stir hair on nape of neck.
Pulchritudinous is probably too unwieldy a word. Fricative, or fractious, lament might fall short of the tingle you wish to prompt. Such words as strophe or defining a sibilant harmonic also fail to conjure full effect of the forlorn or plaintive euphony. The keening lament is more joyful, strident, than the pule or skirl at a coronach.
Should none of the foregoing spark what you seek, perhaps the barbaric yawp of Walt Whitman is more appropriate. He used the phrase to describe himself in the last verse of his poem Song of Myself.
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses mehe complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamedI too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. ..
The fifty two verse poem is a series of vignettes expressing his interpretations of life observations. It was first published in 1855 as one of the twelve poems in Leaves of Grass.
It will be satisfying to read your final choice of description, good luck.
I've never thought of the sound as barbaric. To me it's a joyful sound; as if the bird gathers the beauty of the sky, the breeze and the mountains and turns them into sound. There was a wedge-tailed eagle calling above the mountain when my husband proposed to me, so maybe that has coloured how I think of it!
Thanks Jan - that sounds inspirational - I'm off to find a copy
That is downright 'unfair'; you had better hurry up and get it available for reading. You describe a captivating scenario.
[quote=Nena]the bird gathers the beauty of the sky[/quote]
You receive no contradiction from me neither do I think Walt Whitman had any argument. He is quoting the "yawp" of his own vocal chord as "barbaric" when compared to the screel or skirl of the "accusing" bird of prey.
[quote=Betsie]I'm off to find a copy[/quote]
Hope you were rewarded with enjoyment of Walt Whitman's interpretations. There appear to be several websites freely broadcasting his works so I don't think a link needs posting here. Please shout, should you experience any difficulty finding what I consider image provoking manipulation of words.