Yesterday at Trader Joe's I spotted green juice next to the organic carrot juice. I suppose it's been there all along, but yesterday it caught my eye. I get tired of the Same Old Thing and am always interested in trying something new.

So I bought a small bottle of it. It is thick, almost viscous, and a most unappetizing shade of green. The greens have been mixed with fruit juices--apple and banana, mostly--to improve the flavor.

As I drink it, I remind myself it's good for me. But it's a "buy it once, never again" item, thankyouverymuch.

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In comments yesterday John used the word "onomatopoetic". Haven't heard that one for many years. One of my favorite figures of speech--the sound of the word echoes the sound of the action. Like flip-flop. Bang! Crackle. Buzz (one of my favorites). There are lots more. Hiccup. Purr. Sizzle. Roar. Zap. And two I use all the time--Zoom and Swoosh. Some nouns, some verbs.

Could someone who doesn't speak English intuit the meanings of these words from the sounds of the words alone?

I've often wondered if language developed, in part, from onomatopoetic words, the grunts and squeaks of proto-humans gradually coming to reflect certain environmental sounds, which then in turn came to represent the thing that made the sound.

I also wonder if other languages have as many (or more) such words as English, or if the count is fairly consistent throughout human languages.

Some day, when I retire, it's a subject I'd like to explore.