“Ouch” in Other Languages

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Michelle and I’m from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the program.

Thank you. I’ve always wondered about the word ouch.

Is it a universal word or is it something you learn?

I mean, do people in German, when they stub their toe, do they say ouch?

Or people in France, when they stub their toe, do they say ouch or do they say a different word?

Yes. It’s funny you should bring up German because the Germans actually use ouch as well.

They spell it differently, but it sounds exactly the same.

Yeah, what is it? A-U-T-S-C-H, right?

That’s right, yeah, ouch.

And they might also say ow, too, and spell it a little differently.

But they’re not universal.

Every language does have these interjections that you’d say if you stub your toe

Or slam your fingers in a corridor or something like that.

Oh, that’s a nice word for it, interjection.

I’m going to say that next time I stub my toe.

Interjection.

Well, Michelle, it’s a class of language that you say kind of without thinking about it, right?

Yes.

Martha, do you know what the French say?

The French, they have a few.

They might say, ay, like that, or, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, or, oh, yeah, yeah, like that.

Ow, la, la.

Well, they have those weird French vowels.

You know those French vowels, Michelle?

They go, oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And then the Spanish, as Martha will tell you, say, ay, or ay, or ay, ay, ay, which is,

Which is, we know as English speakers so well that it’s kind of part of our parody of Spanish

Speakers, right?

Ay, ay, ay.

Yeah, exactly.

There is a lot of similarity here.

They’re short.

They’re quick.

They’re vowel heavy.

Easy to say.

They don’t require a lot of elaboration.

They’ve just kind of come out of your mouth.

And a lot of times, they don’t really have any semantic content, if that makes sense.

They don’t necessarily contain within them any other value except to say, wow, I’m surprised and I’m a little hurt.

So it is something that we learn.

It’s not something.

Yeah, the French don’t have the same one, say, as the Norwegians.

It’s similar, but it’s not exactly the same.

We do learn them, but every language does have one.

We apparently have a role as human beings for some kind of expression to say

When we do something foolish to ourselves.

Is there a word that’s universal just among humans, do you know?

Something that all humans say the same, regardless of what language.

I think that there might be, this is going to sound crazy,

There’s a bit of Hollywood insider kind of a joke.

There’s a sound clip that they play that was originally from the 1950s

That they always use to refer to, or in scenes in movies,

And have for decades where somebody is falling or being impaled

Or the dinosaur is eating them or something like that.

I forget what it’s called.

Do you know what I’m talking about, Martha?

No, I have no idea, but I want to know.

It’s named after the character in the first movie in the 1950s,

And it’s this, like that.

I know what you’re talking about, sure.

Yeah, once you hear it, you’ll hear it in movie after movie.

I think that this is really close, in my opinion.

I mean, I’m not a scientist or anything, but in my opinion,

I think it’s really close to the thing that you would say if in real life

You were impaled or shot with an arrow or a dinosaur ate your leg.

Okay.

Well, that’s interesting.

I mean, we just, you know, we expel what’s ever in our lungs,

And it passes through our vocal cords

And it’s a contentless utterance.

There’s no words to it and very little articulation.

It’s full force as much as we can do

And expresses our angst and agony.

Okay. Well, thank you.

I’ve always wondered about that.

Oh, it’s the Wilhelm.

The Wilhelm? Come on.

The Wilhelm. It’s called the Wilhelm.

Google it.

Of course, Wikipedia, which is poor on most academic subjects

But very great on pop culture, has a great page on it.

The Wilhelm?

The Wilhelm.

The scream is known as the wheel helm.

Okay, Michelle, you have your work cut out for you.

There you go.

I would claim, Michelle, that that’s as close to universal as you can get.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Super duper.

Thanks for calling, Michelle.

Okay, great question.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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