Where is your etymology of ‘OK’ coming from? As far as I am aware (or can Google) the origin is unknown. It was first documented in America but this doesn’t mean it is of American English origin. I’m not having a go here i’m just interested to know if the origin has been proven yet.
I really doubt there are any.
I thought it was pretty well established that it came from an early 1800s fad of abbreviations with purposeful mispellings, in this case meaning “oll/orl korrect.” It was then popularized in a campaign slogan (Van Buren, Old Kinderhook.) Has this been called into question?
How about the sharp intake of air when encountering sudden pain? You know, this ‘sfff’-kind of sound. Like getting a papercut or bumping your shin on an edge, in that first instant when you just notice the pain without yet being consciously aware of what’s happened. Often followed by some ‘ahh’-kind of sound when that first instant passes.
I think a lot of exclamations are done to communicate with people around you (to elicit help, warn etc) - probably without a lot of awareness that that is what you are doing.
I live alone and find myself often with a momentary awareness that there is no point to respond verbally to pain etc. Though I had an incident the other day where I dislocated my finger and noise came out of me that was completely involuntary - it surprised me (and once again reinforced that I usually say “oww” voluntarily, even when alone).
Shhh?
I believe that the vocalizations that babies make are universal. They all cry, they all giggle, and they all seem to blow bubbles while trying to make their first word sounds, which usually seem to be some variation on “mmmmaaaa.”
On a related note, when you want a small child to urinate, do you use a word that ends with the “ee” sound? I know in several languages it’s either “pee”, “wee” or “shee.”
I’d go with “pssss”, personally, but I’ve never had to get a small child to urinate.
In Spanish (Mexican variety, at least), I was surprised to learn that the word/sound for this is “este”. It seems like quite a long, complex way to say “uhh”, but they really do use it that way.
“Este” or “esto” (lit. “this thing”) basically stands for “this thing whose name I can’t come up with, damnit what was it called it’s on the tip of my tongue where is a dictionary when you need one”. It’s something learned, and learned pretty late: children don’t do it (I’d say it starts at tweens). We do say “eeeeh…” as well, but it’s considered better to use the word, it indicates “one moment, I’m thinking and not having a stroke” better than an inarticulate sound. If you just go “eeeeh” and your age is in double digits, people are likely to think you are having a medical problem.
“hey”
No, I’ve been hearing “hey” in Spanish but until very recently its Spanish usage had been restricted to Julio Iglesias.
The scream of agony as one is burning to death in the firey car crash. 