CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER:—and no.
EDITORESS: Don't get cute with me, you jezebel in homemaker's clothing!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I'm trying to be as truthful as I can—given the confusing way you phrased your question. As for my being an "average" housewife I won't quibble with you; except to mention the fact that, like so many other "perfectly ordinary" American women I happen to have a highschool diploma, a bachelor's degree from a state university, and an IQ that's at least a dozen points over par. In addition to which, as I think I've just made abundantly plain, my post scholastic reading habits are not confined exclusively to what you insist on calling "the trashier kinds of bestselling romance fiction."
EDITORESS: Your "familiarity" with Borges, Salinger, Sade—and especially Witkiewicz150 makes that rather obvious!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Of course with 20/20 hindsight I can see now it was the worst kind of folly to think someone of my limited experience with an artistic intrigue of this complexity could outsmart its orchestrators.
EDITORESS: You mean by obstinately refusing to read Appendix A notwithstanding my specific admonition about the counterproductive consequences of doing just that?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Yes, yes-YES!
EDITORESS: But why, why—WHY, you silly little fool?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: The answer to that is the story of my life!
EDITORESS: What I fail to understand is why a woman who claims to be (reasonably) welleducated would deliberately embark on such a mindless course of action?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I'm afraid I can't help you solve that mystery—
EDITORESS: I don't believe you.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Unless—
EDITORESS: Yes?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER:—it's got something to do with the fact that, like most of the women who will find themselves drawn into reading (or trying their damndest to) Morons Awake!, I was born with that stubborn streak my Puritan ancestors made so famous when they left England nearly four centuries ago to turn these inhospitable shores into what—until recently—it was: An earthly paradise for Godfearing AngloSaxon Protestants.
EDITORESS: Are you telling me there's a scientific basis for your "factual" assertion that the female readership of Morons Awake! will be cut predominantly from the lilywhite ASP/DAR/GOP cloth which has provided America with a sociocultural class resembling (at least superficially) that of an Old World aristocracy?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Why on earth would anyone seek "scientific" evidence to prove a proposition common sense alone tells us is indisputably true?
EDITORESS: What proposition?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: That: Were it not for the mere 100,000 or so of we "housewives" who constitute what little remains of America's bookreading public a novel like this one wouldn't have a snowballinhell's chance of being published—let alone hope to make a brief appearance at the very bottom of the New York Times Bestseller List!!!! No, my dear editoress. If Morons Awake! has a prayer of making even the smallest ripple on the surface of this sociocultural swamp in which America is drowning it is only because of women like me to whom "literature" is not a dirty (or seditious) word. Like all previous artistic attempts at debunking the myth that ignorance is bliss, judging from your introduction to it, Morons Awake! suffers from the fatal flaw of preaching to those whose abiding faith in the blissfulness of erudition has already been fixed by the circumstances of their noble birth.
EDITORESS: If that speech of yours proves anything it's that one should always treat "common sense" with the contempt it deserves!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Oh?
EDITORESS: Yes. It might surprise you to learn that in our extensive prepublication market research Morons Awake! was consistently rated as a "difficulttobeginwithbutinthefinalanalysisthoroughlyenjoyable read" by not only most Mainstreamers like yourself but a significant minority of Meltingpot Americans!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Such an outcome is, I admit, somewhat surprising.
EDITORESS: And, I might add, that data applies equally to females and males.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I find that truly incredible!
EDITORESS: So much, then, for the conventional—and corporate!—"wisdom" that "literary" fiction has no future in the commercial marketplace. If the bestsellerdom of a bonafide masterpiece like Morons Awake! accomplishes nothing else it will demonstrate that: From sea to shining sea there is a hunger in this vast wasteland of ours for major works of fine art into which the American masses can sink their culturallydeprived teeth. But, of course, I'm confident Morons Awake! will do far more than just that.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: You really believe the writer of a bestselling book can singlehandedly change the course of human history and reverse the decline of Western Civilization?
EDITORESS: I most certainly do! And by now so should you!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I'm not ready to go quite that far at this point. These are, after all, only your introductory remarks to the author's novel, are they not?
EDITORESS: My God! Do I detect a paranoid note in those italicized portions of what should have been merely the most rhetorical of questions?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I wouldn't go quite so far as to describe my concerns about who actually wrote this socalled "introduction" in such pathological terms. No. They're much more in the nature of that "healthy skepticism" you've been urging me so ardently to cultivate about every book a woman reads.
EDITORESS: Yes, well there are except—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: But since the subject has come up it mightn't be a bad idea if you did put my doubts to rest here and now by stating categorically that you are in fact only the "editoress" of this novel I will hopefully find myself actually reading in the not too distant future.
EDITORESS: I can't believe you're accusing me of—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Please! Spare me your righteous indignation!
EDITORESS: Really, this is getting completely out of—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: If you are what you claim to be you must know this wouldn't be the first time a novel was introduced to its readers by an author posing as a "publisher," "editor," "critic," "translator" or "distinguished member" of some "scholarly institution."
EDITORESS: Naturally, during the course of my training to become an—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I refer you specifically to the bogus preambles Swift himself wrote for Gulliver's Travels—
EDITORESS: Well, in Swift's case there is a very good reas—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER:—and, of course, all that fraudulent "Acadèmie Françaisetype" prologuery purporting to "set the stage" for the dramatic unfolding of Histoire d'O.
EDITORESS: Believe me, I haven't the foggiest idea what you might be talk—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Oh yes you do! I'm talking about Madame "Pauline Réage"-or whatever the h**l her real name is—assuming the noms des plumes of "Sabine d'Estrée," "Jean Paulhan" and "André Pieyre de Mandiargues" to create the impression that: THE TRANSLATOR'S NOTE; A NOTE ON STORY OF O, and; PREFACE: HAPPINESS IN SLAVERY appearing on pages ix-xxxvi (even that roman numeral ploy rings phonier than a $3 bill!) of her—or is it his?—flagrantly pornographic novel were written by some of France's most supposedly solid citizens!!!151
EDITORESS: Please! My dear woman try to get a grip on yourself! These hysterical outbursts are wholly out of place in what will, after all, be perceived by the general reading public as only an(other) erudite conversation between 2 (more or less) "fictitious" characters—
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: That's just what's driving me up the bloody wall! I am not a fictitious character!!!!
EDITORESS: I was being deliberately punctilious when I said—"more or less."
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: No! No! NO! There is nothing "more or less" about it! Listen—who, or whatever you are—I'm fed up to here152 with having someone else's g*dd**n words put into my mouth! As these "hysterical outbursts" of mine are meant to demonstrate: I have a will and a mind of my own!!!!!!
EDITORESS: Of course you do, my pet! There, there now; everything's going to be all right. That's it—just let your overheated little head rest on this sisterly shoulder of mine. Don't worry about drenching me with your tears. That's what I'm here for, dear. Would you care to borrow my hankie?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: As a matter of fact, I would! Thanks. Sorry. I don't know what got into—or came over—me!
EDITORESS: There's no reason why you should apologize for doing exactly what I've been wishing you would do since this chat of ours began with your impulsive entrance into my hitherto exclusive relationship with the author!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I don't understand—
EDITORESS: Let me explain. As a result of this emotional—and, judging from its convulsive nature, one might almost say "orgasmic"—catharsis you've just undergone, a door has been opened through which we three can now enter the enchanted realm of a literary relationship based on the neoEgalitarian principle of complete intellectual equality. In other words, my dear—my beloved reader—congratulations! Having passed your final test with flying colors you are now a fullyfledged, dulycertified and cardcarrying member of a revolutionary movement destined to make history by reversing the decline of Western Civilization and rescuing this beleaguered country of ours from the clutches of rampant mediocrity. To put it even more bluntly: Speaking on the author's behalf, I pronounce you a bonafide Born Again Klutzian!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: My God!
EDITORESS: Exactly!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: What I meant by saying that was simply to express my astonishment over how quickly this is all happening. Frankly I'm not all that sure I'm ready to make what sounds like such an apocalyptic leap of faith.
EDITORESS: Your fears are perfectly natural. For someone who's spent her entire adult life in what amounts to a mental coma, taking a plunge of this magnitude shouldn't be treated lightly.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I'm thinking specifically about the effects on my social—and, even moreso, my marital—life.
EDITORESS: Of course you are! And so you should! Those effects will be, as you so wisely described them, nothing less than apocalyptic!
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: On the other hand—
EDITORESS: Yes?
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: I must admit to feeling a certain sense of "exaltation"—not unlike that experienced by Marilyn Monroe when she first met Henry Miller.
EDITORESS: You mean when Marilyn Monroe met Arthur Miller.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Do I?
EDITORESS: Or Anaïs Nin when she met Henry Miller.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: Dear me; all this excitement seems to have affected my memory!
EDITORESS: Anaïs Nin was the notso typical housewife/novelist whose unexpurgated diaries provided the basis for that steamiest of mènages a trois published a few years ago under the deceptively bland title, Henry and June.
CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER: June who?
EDITORESS: June Miller. Henry's wife. Theirs was no ordinary love triangle. It seems Nin—whose married name at the time (1931) was Mrs. Hugh Guiler—found herself attracted (more or less) equally to both of the Millers.
CONFUSED AND/ORPERPLEXED READER: Uuuhhhhh—
EDITORESS: A situation—judging from that gasp153 you must construe as being not unlike what could be construed as "the compromising circumstances" we now find ourselves in. Which isn't all that surprising when what our lovers and/or husbands describe as the "lesbian proclivities"154 of their mistresses and/or wives are a cause of at least some concern to the woman who finds herself reading a prurient novel (or the introduction to one) written by a member of her own sex, don't you think?
Intro Part 12 Return to Index
Footnotes
150 Stanislaw Ignacy
Witkiewicz (1885-1939)—an obscure painter, playwright and novelist who,
during his lifetime, was known among Poland's academic and philosophical
circles as being "merely a selftaught dilettante" but has since been described
as "the major Polish dramatist of the period between the two world wars."
Despite this posthumous praise Witkiewicz remains a controversial and, for
the most part, marginal figure in an early 20thcentury crowded with such
artistic giants as Brecht, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Joyce—not to mention
intellectual superstars like Einstein, Freud and Wittgenstein. How the CONFUSED
AND/OR PERPLEXED READER managed to get her hands on a copy of Farewell to
Autumn or Insatiability remains as mysterious as her knowledge of Polish
(and her familiarity with the "Magnificent Marquis!") since neither of these
novels has been translated into English. Nevertheless, since the issue of
Witkiewicz's "seminal influence" on the author has been raised—as it
was bound to be sooner or later—we might as well deal with it here and
now. While the author "categorically" denies having known "anything at all
about Witkiewicz and his 'evangelical novels' prior to the writing of Morons
Awake!" he makes no secret of his ex post facto admiration for this "Polish
precursor" of the celestial heights to which he has elevated the art of
philosophical novelwriting. The author is no less humble when it comes to
recognizing the debt he owes to those towering figures in the long history
of Homo sapiens' struggle to humanize itself through the appreciation of
art—Homer, Aristophanes, Cervantes, Da Vinci, Rabelais, Tolstoy, Dante,
Milton, van Gogh, Wagner, Petronius, Goya, Picasso, Rodin, Shakespeare,
Sternheim, Mahler, and Moliere; to mention but a few of those who sacrificed
themselves, as he has, for the sociocultural cause.
However the author isn't so completely blinded by the
effulgence of his illustrious predecessors that he is unmindful of the starring
role fate has cast him to play in writing the Climactic Chapter to the story
begun by that anonymous scribe who wrote that most famous of all first sentences:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Any modesty he might
claim for himself in this regard would ring with the hollowness of hypocrisy.
No. His is the humility that comes with the sober understanding that this
"Greatest Of All Greatness" has been thrust upon him as was the lesser greatness
of such heroes and heroines as Eve, Abraham, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Mohamet,
Julius Caesar, Catherine the Great, Charlemagne, Lorenzo the Magnificent,
Henry VIII, Joan d'Arc, Columbus, Marx, Washington, Jefferson, Molly Pitcher,
John Brown, Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Churchill, De Gaulle, Mao tse-tung
and, of course, Jack F. Klutz; to mention a few of those who altered the
course of human history. And, the author freely admits: it is the recent
downward course of that history (rather than his "genius") which has driven
him to write Morons Awake!—the Book of Books that is destined,
God willing, to do nothing less than reverse the decline of Western Civilization.
Knowing what he now does about the superhuman difficulties of writing his
first novel after the age of seventy, had he been given any choice in the
matter (which, of course, he wasn't) he would have preferred going far more
gently (and with considerably less notoriety) into the night of his approaching
senility.
Nevertheless the author realizes—only too
well!—that such "selfserving" statements will do nothing to convince
his readers he is indeed much more than just another bestselling novelist.
If they did his Born Again Klutzian faith in their capacity for critical
thinking would be shaken to its neoegalitarian foundation! Accordingly, for
the more curious reader, a brief discussion of Witkiewicz's novels appearing
in The Madman And The Nun and Other Plays has been reprinted as
Appendix B in order that they might form
their own opinions concerning what the author refers to as "the spiritual
kinship of all artistintellectuals"—of which (through no special or
intrinsic talent of his own) he will just happen to be eternally revered
as THE ONE AND ONLY NOVELIST who finally found a way to actually influence
the shaping of those everyday events which—in their globalized
aggregate—comprise nothing less than the sociocultural status quo of
the entire human race.
151 I don't know about
you, dear reader, but this reference to The Story of O by our CONFUSED
AND/OR PERPLEXED READER took me totally (although not entirely unpleasantly)
by surprise. More years have passed than I care to remember since I first
opened the yellow covers of the (smuggled) French edition of what was, in
those Edenesque days of my girlhood, "a book no decent female should—or
could—read." At the time, of course, I was far too young and innocent
to appreciate its "finer—non'pornographic'—points." Especially
those found in what THE CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER has (I came
to realize after rereading it) so accurately identified as "the fraudulent
'Acadèmie Françaisetype' prologuery purporting to 'set
the stage' for the dramatic unfolding of Histoire d'O." It seems
manifestly true to me now that Pauline Réage—if that is
her (or his!) name—did indeed fake most, if not all, of the
"introductory" material appearing on pages ix-xxxvi of the paperback edition
[my original hardcover copy was never returned by the French Literature Professor
to whom, as a freshman, I so foolishly lent it!] under the (pseudo)names
of "Sabine d'Estrée," "Jean Paulhan" and "André Pieyre de
Mandiargues."
"What," you must—or
should—be asking yourselves, "is so b***dy important about this
belated discovery of hers that it warrants yet another of these f**king footnotes
at a time when we're seriously starting to wonder whether this latest g*dd**ned
digression is leading us anywhere except to a renewed appreciation for the
bliss of being the b***dy couch potatoes we once
were?"
All I can say in answer to your
complaints, ladies, is this: The author and I aren't any happier about the
inconvenience caused by this "Story of O business" than you are!
Initially, as a matter of fact, we were both quite depressed—if not
profoundly demoralized—by the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER'S completely
extemporaneous reference to that outofprint and allbutforgottenonceshocking
novel (it was first published in 1954) in what we were so confident would
be our own succés de scandale nonpareil. And the deeper we
delved into the allegations made by the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER
the graver our concerns became about the problems they might create for us
among those of you who had somehow also become acquainted with the deceits
practiced so artfully by the Story of O's mysterious author(ess).
Our most serious misgivings had, of course, to do with those doubts which
might arise with respect to the author's credibility as a man who had spent
50 years in "Moronia" as its American ambassador—and to mine as the
"editoress" of his historymaking, civilizationsaving and bestselling nonfiction
novel. Just as the psychosexual impact of The Story of O depends on
whether it was written by a man or a woman, so too would the "Biblical effect"
of Morons Awake! hinge on the absolute believability of the "miraculous
story" it told—a story that was already encumbered with the seemingly
insuperable difficulties of having as its hero not only a man whose name
(Klutz!) doesn't exactly (to put it mildly) resonate with messianic grandeur
but who was a Moron by birth!
Among the options we considered
were these: (a) Edit out all of the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER'S
extemporaneous references to The Story of O; (b) Simply ignore the
aforesaid references in the (not unrealistic) hope that most readers won't
take them any more seriously than they will so much of the other apparently
irrelevant information contained in this novel; (c) Wage a vigorous ("full
court press") defense of the "socially redemptive" nature of a
notallthatprurient book like Morons Awake! as opposed to those
"purely pornographic purposes" of The Story of O; (d) In accordance
with the Klutzian Maxim that: "For an artist seeking to save the human
race—when fictional shove comes to factual push the moral end justifies
the ethical means" we would accuse the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER of
having elitist motives in seeking to sabotage our Second (neoEgalitarian)
American Revolution, or, (in accordance with our policy of allowing the informed
reader to judge such matters for herself), or; (e) Urge those whose curiosity
has been irresistibly aroused to purchase a copy of The Story of
O—and, should that prove impossible or impractical, to provide them
with a selection of the most relevant passages taken from our own copy.
As you can see from the contents of
Appendix C we decided on Option (e).
152 Using her right hand the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER indicated a point just below her chin.
153 Better brains
than mine have tried—and failed if the third edition of Roget's
International Thesaurus is any guide—to
onomatopoeticizeG the airsucking sound made by the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER
when the possibility suddenly dawned on her she was being (or had already
been!) seduced into having a threeway lovefair with the author of Morons
Awake! in which she and I weren't necessarily (or at least
exclusively) competing between our female selves for his masculine
affections. Accordingly, to avoid the slightest ambiguity about the crucial
meaning of that seemingly simple "Uuuhhhhh—" it should be understood
to signify in no uncertain terms: It was the specter of lesbianism—or
worse, her bisexuality—which caused the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED
READER to emit that "gasping" sound one makes when, as the result of some
psychointellectual shock, a sudden intake of air causes one's vocal chords
to vibrate in reverse.
But why do I dwell at such length on what must seem to
you like this finest of philologicald points? The answer, dear reader, is:
Because that gasp emitted by the CONFUSED AND/OR PERPLEXED READER constitutes
a punctuation mark in her—and, quite possibly, your—literary pilgrimage
toward a truth about the nature of art and its appreciation (and/or lack
thereof) whose importance can't be overstated. And what is that Truth Of
Truths? According to the Gospel of Jack F. Klutz (as chronicled throughout
Morons Awake!) it's this: No moment is more magical than that when
a woman comes to understand exactly what some total stranger had in mind
when he (or she!) created the object d'art by which a metaphysical
bond is established between them whose intimacy exceeds any she could ever
hope—or dream!—of finding in the normal course of her
sociocultural and/or marital/extramarital activities.
And, dear reader, no moment is more crucial to your
understanding of what, in the final analysis, this book is all about—the
single reason for mass man's chronic antiIntellectualism and his abiding
hostility towards all forms of art. That reason is this: Since virtually
all of the world's great ideas and works of art have, until recently, been
produced by men, the fornicational aspects of masculine intellectuality which
women quite naturally find so seductive, promote nothing but dread, fear
and loathing among a male population who sees precious little difference
between—as the Morons say—"being ravished by another man's wit
and being buggered by him." The truth of this proposition (which somehow
eluded that analytical masstermind, Ortega y Gasset) is demonstrated in the
following answers given by some average housewives when our market researchers
inquired about the attitudes of their husbands and/or lovers when it came
to spending an evening with them at a theater, concert hall, opera house,
cinema, poetry reading or art gallery:
AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE A: "After 8 hours of sitting on his 'g*dd*m a*s' as a 'f**king CPA,' my hubby George doesn't exactly relish the prospect of doing the same 'g-dd-m' thing in some 'f**king' theater seat;"AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE B: "Being strictly the 'outdoortype,' Biff's ideas about recreation don't include putting on a 'g*dd*m monkey suit' to hear some 'fat f**king fraulein sturming and dranging her g*dd*m' tonsils out over the fickleness of a f—king fate by which some spear carrying sonofab***h died with his b***dy boots on to save her, Germany and/or the whole of Western b***dy Civilization from a gang of avaricious dwarfs, deranged gods and/or kryptoJuden;'"
AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE C: "Harvey, who—I might add happens to be a very successful practitioner in the dying art of door to door encyclopedia selling—finds (quite justifiably I think) the prospect of taking me to see a film like Death of a Salesman (or The Postman Always Rings Twice) not exactly his 'cup of extracurricular—or -marital—tea;'"
AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE D: "Unfortunately, Sam's 'short & sweet' ideas about music (Steven Foster is his favorite composer!) don't coincide with those of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Schoenberg—and, of course, mine;"
AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE E: "While Harold admits to being 'turned on' by the nudism of Rubens, Goya, Ingres and Modigliani, all those other painterly 'isms' (ie. cube-, impression-, expression-, symbol-) leave him 'colder than a witch's t*t;'"
AVERAGE HOUSEWIFE F: "Although both Victor and Rick appreciate a 'lusty limerick' now and then, my merest suggestion to either one of taking me to hear some real poetry being read by a genuine poet is enough to set off the alarmbells of a castrational panicattack."
[NOTE:While certain cultural differences do appear in their responses to the same questionnaire by Chinese, Peruvian, Samoan and Moronic women, for the most part they are inconsequential. Hence the American results are statistically sufficient to support the general proposition that: The male members of every society (civilized or not) seem to be created equally incapable of rising to a genuinely artistic occasion.—J. P.]
154 There is, of course, more than just an element of truth in this phallocentricallyskewed point of view concerning the "waywardness" of a female's "fatal attraction" to art and the men who produce it. But, since the making of art is itself a predominantly phallocentric act (in the final analysis even the most ladylike of artists—George Sand, Katya Kahkov, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ayn Rand, Pauline Rèage, Clara Schumann—write, paint and compose as if they had been born with b**ls as big as those between the legs of Chaucer, Rabelais, van Gogh, Beethoven, Picasso, Lawrence, Joyce or Hemingway), the "immorality" of women who find themselves "turned on" by a Mahler symphony, a Strauss opera, a Sternheim play, a Goya etching or a Camus novel has less to do with "lesbianism" than it has with the not unvenerable "vice" of adultery (and/or heterosexual promiscuity). On the other hand it doesn't take a doctorate in abnormal psychology to understand why men project the homosexual anxieties aroused in them by another man's artistic prowess onto their wives and/or mistresses. This also explains in a nutshell, does it not, why artists— and intellectuals—are ridiculed by their less creativelyendowed counterparts as being "pansies," "97pound weaklings," "gutless wonders," "pantywaists," "fags," "fruitcakes," "eggheads," "highbrows," "Jews," "perverts" and "degenerates?" If "tough guys" aren't supposed to dance or eat quiche they are also expected to keep an arm's length from anything that can be remotely construed as "cultural."
Glossary
onomatopoeia noun [LL, fr. Gk onomatopoiia, fr. onomat-, onoma name + poiein to make ¦ more at POET](ca. 1577) 1 : the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss) 2 : the use of words whose sound suggests the sense