
What is the first word that comes out when you stub your toe or start banging your head against the desk after six hours of nonstop studying? Is it “ow,” “ouch,” “ay,” or something else?
According to the Online Etymology dictionary, “ouch” derives from the German cry of pain, “autsch.” Since the earliest examples of “ouch” have been found in the U.S., it is likely that the German word was transmitted into English via Pennsylvania German version of “autsch,” which was “outch.” In any case, it is not clear where “autsch” came from—it is a relatively rare word in German—and the OED simply suggests it is “probably imitative” of the sounds that occur naturally when we experience pain.
Steven T. Byington, writing in the Dec. 1942 issue of American Speech, recalls that in his childhood, “the interjection of sudden pain was [aʊ], which we assumed to be merely the sound that the human voice spontaneously produces under the stimulus of sudden pain, but it is…coincident with the German ‘au.’”
Is there a consensus among languages as to what is the “natural, spontaneous sound” that emerges when one hurts oneself? In Japanese, the interjection expressing pain is “itai”; in Spanish it is “ay” (”although in Spanish it is oftener lamentation than pain,” according to Byington) and French has the similar “aïe”; meanwhile, the Russian interjection expressing pain is “Ой.” As for the ancient world, Greeks would use “ah” for sharp sudden pain, the Romans would exclaim “au,” “hau,” or “vau,” and in Hebrew the interjection was “oi.”
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