Blowing a raspberry explained

Blowing a raspberry, razzing or making a Bronx cheer, is to make a noise similar to flatulence that may signify derision, real or feigned. It is made by placing the tongue between the lips and blowing.

A raspberry (when used with the tongue) is not used in any human language as a building block of words, apart from jocular exceptions such as the name of the comic-book character Joe Btfsplk. However, the vaguely similar bilabial trill (essentially blowing a raspberry with one's lips) is a regular consonant sound in a few dozen languages scattered around the world.

Spike Jones and His City Slickers used a "birdaphone" to create this sound on their recording of "Der Fuehrer's Face", repeatedly lambasting Adolf Hitler with: "We'll Heil! (Bronx cheer) Heil! (Bronx cheer) Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!"[1] [2]

In the terminology of phonetics, the raspberry has been described as a voiceless linguolabial trill, transcribed pronounced as /[r̼̊]/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet,[3] and as a buccal interdental trill, transcribed pronounced as /[ↀ͡r̪͆]/ in the Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet.[4]

Name

The nomenclature varies by country. In most anglophone countries, it is known as a raspberry, which is attested from at least 1890, and which in the United States had been shortened to razz by 1919. In the United States it has also been called a Bronx cheer since at least the early 1920s.[5] [6]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: David . Hinkley . Scorn and disdain: Spike Jones giffs Hitler der old birdaphone, 1942 . . March 3, 2004 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090408091714/https://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2004/03/03/2004-03-03_scorn_and_disdain_spike_jone.html . April 8, 2009.
  2. Web site: Pop Chronicles 1940s Program #5. John. Gilliland. April 14, 1972. UNT Digital Library.
  3. Pike called it a "voiceless exolabio-lingual trill", with the tongue vibrating against a protruding lower lip. Book: Pike, Kenneth L.. Kenneth Pike. 1943. Phonetics: A Critical Analysis of Phonetic Theory and a Technique for the Practical Description of Sounds. Ann Arbor. University of Michigan Press.
  4. Ball . Martin J. . Martin J. Ball . Howard . Sara J. . Miller . Kirk . 2018 . Revisions to the extIPA chart . Journal of the International Phonetic Association . 48 . 2 . 155–164 . 10.1017/S0025100317000147 . 151863976.
  5. News: All Chicago backs up its footballers. Runyon. Damon. 19 Oct 1921. San Francisco Examiner. 18 Jun 2019. Universal Syndicate. 19. ....the East will grin and give Western football the jolly old Bronx cheer..
  6. News: Wills looks like boob in Johnson bout. Farrell. Henry L.. 30 Nov 1922. San Antonio Evening News. 18 Jun 2019. United Press. 8. While the crowd was giving vent to the 'Bronx cheer' and hurling garlands of raspberries from the gallery.....