somebody please stop this "oof" thing.

2019/06/06 3:51 PM (UTC -5) | tildearrow

i know it's a minor thing, but since 2018 i observed an enormous rise on the usage of the "oof" onomatopoeia.
seriously, I couldn't comprehend why in the world were people suddenly embracing a new sound which hasn't been used in English before... until now, when I finally understood.

while the onomatopoeia is often attributed to the famous sandbox game Roblox (being the sound the player emits upon dying), i have another theory on the sound's origin.

as you may know, many Spanish-speaking people have been attempting to enter the US recently (especially considering Trump's policies on Spanish and Latin American immigration), leading to an increase in the number of bilingual people.
in spanish, an often used onomatopoeia for disgust and/or pain is "¡Uff!".
phonetically speaking, what's the closest equivalent in English of "uff"? of course, it is "oof"!

but that wasn't the main focus of this post. the focus is, I hate seeing people adopt the term.
you may be wondering why, so if you allow me to be more specific, then sure, I can give you a reason.

the onomatopoeia is wrong. let me break this down:

• "oof" is pronounced as [ʊfː].
• it has to be something where the "f" is elongated.
• it can't be "off", as that is pronounced using [ɔ] and that word already exists.
• it can't be "uff" either, as English's insane pronunciation rules demand it to be pronounced with [ʌ].
• it can't even be "ooff", as that is too long, and an onomatopoeia is normally concise and short.
• however, "oof" demands elongating the upsilon, and keeping the "f" as short as possible ([ʊːf]).

as you can see, there is no clear way to translate [ʊfː] into an onomatopoeia that makes sense to me. so I refuse to adopt the sound!

if we don't do anything to stop this from spreading it will take over the world, until the only utterance we deploy is "oof"!
yeah, I know this post doesn't make sense, but I just wanted to tell you that I dislike the sound...