Feeling Onomatopoeiaish

The grass along Tink's walk home from school had been sprayed last week. Little white signs warned us off it with skulls and crossbones.

"Don't walk on there," I told Tink and her friend.

"Why not?" they asked, in unison, because already at age 6 anything your mother recommends must be met with skepticism.

"Because it's been sprayed with pesticides."

"Ewwwwww!" they shrieked in unison, because when you are six year old best friends, you say everything in unison.

A few minutes later, Tink's friend said, "What's pesticides?"

I chuckled and asked why she'd said "ew" if she didn't know.

"It SOUNDS bad," she said. "It doesn't sound, like, natural."

It doesn't, does it? Say it. Pesticide. Yuck.

So after I explained the Latin "-cide," we talked about onomatopoeia, because you don't come over to Jacqui's house without expecting a literature lesson.

I write picture books. I have 400-700 words to tell my story. Nothing pleases me like a word that sings its own meaning with its sounds. I like "slithers" and "zig zag" and "pop" and I like the more subtle ones like "pesticide" and "snuggle." Sometimes the word even looks the part, like "dazzle" and "loopy."

And sometimes, I can hear my sister saying, the word is perfectly descriptive in every way. Like "dork."

She's right, but I don't care. Onomatopoeia makes me smile. And who doesn't need to smile in a world full of pesticides?