Say That Again? An onomatopoeia (or onomatopœia, from the Greek ὀνοματοποιία), is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.
Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises, such as "oink" or "meow" or "roar".
Animal names - especially bird names - are often onomatopoeic. For example: Winnie the Pooh got his name from the sound he made when trying to blow a bee off of his nose.
The turkey's name, however, is not onomatopoeic - although he onomatopoeically says"gobble, gobble". At least in English. There are several opinions as to what a turkey says in Turkey.
But speaking of turkey - it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving! For some of us this means lining up a kosher bird from Trader Joe's, which goes great with kosher pareve stuffing from Natural Grocers. But that's only for those of us who eat meat.
Now, there are several good, Jewish reasons not to eat meat. Humans were, before all, intended to be vegetarians. It was only after Noah and the Flood that God allowed us to eat meat. And even kosher animal slaughter is still - well, the slaughter of animals.
On the other hand, how's this for onomatopoeia: m-m-m-m-m-m-meat!
But what to do if there are vegetarians in your family who will be at your Thanksgiving table? Or worse - vegans? (Abq Jew apologizes for claiming that vegans are from a planet orbiting the star of that name. That was wrong, and ... insensitive.)
But how's this for onomatopoeia: TO-FU!
Oops! Insensitive again! And speaking of insensitive - here is the famous (well, Abq Jew remembers it) Tofu Turkey Thanksgiving scene from Everybody Loves Raymond.