Onomatopoeia (on-o-mat-o-pee’-a): Using or inventing a word whose sound imitates that which it names (the union of phonetics and semantics).
One day, I was walking to school and I heard a squishing sound and smelled a sweet smell. It had happened again, to my great embarrassment. Every day squish, or more like sploosh. It made a wet stain so everybody could see it.
My mom packed my lunch in a brown paper bag. Every day she gave me a jelly donut and an apple. The apple would smack the jelly donut, sploosh. I begged my mom to buy me a lunchbox, the partitions would afford my jelly donut protection from my apple. But she was too cheap. So, I started a pool cleaning business so I could buy a lunchbox. I was only 11 and determined to succeed. I named my business Marine Magic and quickly earned enough for my lunchbox. It had a picture on it of Godzilla blowing fire at a skyscraper.
That was forty years ago. I sold Marine Magic two years ago for $1,000,000,000. I’m retired now. Every day I enjoy a jelly donut from my battered old lunchbox. If my mother hadn’t been so cheap, I wouldn’t be here today. Every once-in-awhile I press down on my jelly donut just to hear it sploosh, or I throw it at my spoiled son to remind him that it’s not too late to become something other that a sponge.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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