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Unsound Effect
Some plot happens in Erfworld

STAB  *
— Digger

"I don't know how flinging someone actually made the sound 'fling'."
— The Spoony Experiment reviewing Warrior

"Speaking of which, here I finally had the opportunity to use ’scythe!’ as a sound effect…that’s really the best thing about scythes in comics - they come with their own, easily-identifiable sound effect."
— '''The B-Movie Comic

The Written Sound Effect is a basic technique for illustrating non-dialog sounds in visual media. The text is a transliteration of the sounds, usually written as onomatopoeia. But then some authors will start writing as sound effects words which only sound like onomatopoeia. "Bash!" and "Kick!" for instance, just happen to sound a bit like the impacts they're describing.

And then, some authors will take it too far, with words that aren't the least bit like sound effects, and are actually just the words for that action in loud capital letters. "Glare!" "Leap!" "Flourish!" and even "Idea!"

This is the Unsound Effect. It's a humorous technique, although it is also seen in fight scenes ("Block!" "Slash!").

This is usually attributed to Richie Rich in the original Harvey Comics versions, which lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s. They included such effects as "BOUNCE!" for large rubber balls impacting a hard surface, and went on to "EXPAND!" when Richie utilized one of Prof. Keenbean's Applied Phlebotinum devices meant to go from pocket-size miniature tool/vehicle/etc. to full-size.

It's worth noting that manga has different but similar conventions regarding onomatopoeia. Manga has much more than can be done with an Unsound Effect. Japanese writers will use sound effects to denote sounds, like heartbeats or door slams, but also to represent more abstract events like "smiling" ("niko niko"), "sudden realization" ("ha") or "the sound of silence" ("shiiiiiiin"). These are known as phenomimes when they describe external phenomena and psychomimes when they describe psychological states. Some anime, generally the more surreal sort, turn these into actual sound effects.

See also Visible Silence, the Unsound Effect for no sound.

Related to Editorial Synaesthesia

Examples!

Advertising
  • It is common practice for closed captioning to caption sound effects as well. There is a Windex ad in which the mother cleans a window with Windex to let the sun shine in and wake up her kids. The kids rush out while the mother smirks — beause it's Saturday. Her smirk is captioned as "(mother smirks)."

Anime and Manga
  • In One Piece Chimney did her own sound effect for staring (jiiiiiii).
    • In this page during the Alabasta arc, the camel in the last panel gets, appropriately, CAMEL!!
  • The Mahou Sensei Negima manga does this a lot. Of course, this is probably due to the translators being very faithful to the original; during a silent scene you'll see the giant "shiiiin" kana with tiny English "the sound of silence" written underneath.
    • There's also a rather humorous "Pettanko" sound effect when Anya first sees Yue and Nodoka.
  • The anime versions of Pani Poni Dash, Lucky Star, Hayate The Combat Butler, and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei have all used "staring" ("jiiiiiiiiii") as a vocalised sound effect, in SZS's case as a Running Gag.
  • Manga publisher Tokyopop used to do this, with some such sounds including "Stand", "Glare" and "Turn".
    • Probably one of the funnier ones was "Cadillac!" in Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders.
  • The manga MPD Psycho employs this trope in both humorous and straight forms, for instance, when Amamiya's glasses gleam with light, the other characters swear they can hear the "shing" noise that results. An example of the serious form of the trope in action is the "dokun" or "kadoom" noise that indicates Amamiya's personality changing.
  • A burn victim in Detective Conan had a speech balloon reading "mouthing words" or something to that effect, having been too injured to say anything discernable.
  • From Hayate The Combat Butler, we also have the inestimable: COINCIDENCE!
  • Ouran High School Host Club, with "POINT".
  • There was a hentai doujin which featured as sound effects, "ORGASM!", "CLIMAX!", and best of all, "KA-FUCK!"
    • American artist Smudge (just in case you were going to try to search for him) apparently thinks that the sound a (massive) penis makes when it's forced into a vagina is "FUCKIN-COCKA!"
  • In the space of two pages in the first chapter of Pandora Hearts, we have "GRAB," "FIDGET," "SURPRISE," and of course, "THREATENING ATMOSPHERE."
  • Otome Kikan Gretel has a rather freaked out Yuu with the effect "startle." (next to, of course, someone who talks with hearts
  • Chis Sweet Home uses a number of these, including things like "dejected" and "loom."
  • When the author of Kaiji discovered there wasn't an onomatopoeia for dramatic tension, he invented his own: ZAWA.
  • Manga such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Bleach, and Shaman King often throw "DOOM" on dramatic panels. Even more dramatic panels might get "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM".
  • In Doctor Slump, Genki Girl Arale's greetings are so loud and boisterous that the sound effect for it ("KON'CHWA!", approximately, due to a Verbal Tic) easily dwarfs her and knocks the people she greets off their feet. The aliens attempt to weaponize this power, but fail every time.
  • Fai of xxxHoLic starts saying "Fiuuu" instead of whistling, for which Kurogane mocks him. It later turns out that he did that because his whistling has magical powers, though.
  • In The Mikos Words And The Witches Incantations, the Mountain God offers Isuzu some sweet rice balls with a "Proffer!".
  • The presence of a Battle Aura or similar mind state (even an unshown one) is often accompanied with a "go go go ..." ("ゴ ゴ ゴ ...").
  • As demonstrated by the above examples, manga has sound effects for everything. There's even a sound effect to indicate silence.

Comic Books
  • In X-Men, at least one X-Babies encounter ("Mojo Mayhem") has gone this way (with arguing murmurs written as "argue" or "debate" or "mutter" and the like.)
  • Subverted in an issue of the Thor comic book, where The Hulk hits Thor with an entire freight train (complete with attached cars). The editor's note on the page confesses that there's no onomatopoeia there because nothing they could think of would do the scene justice.
    • The same thing happened when the Thing punched Sandman into his component particles while both were underwater.
  • MAD Magazine, illustrating the reality of a six-man utility crew - one guy digging a hole (accompanied by the sound effect "dig") while the other five are in various states of leisure (accompanied by "eat", "siiiip", "snooze", "hang out" and "read").
    • Another comic features a massive five-way collision accompanied by "HORRENDOUS UNSPELLABLE SOUND EFFECT!"
    • Wally Wood once told a detective story entirely in pictures and exaggerated sound effects (with a couple of unsounds). All the murder victims produced the same sequence of AAAARGH!..THUD...BOUNCE BOUNCE and, in the first case the guy who had been shot rounded off with a quiet BLEED BLEED. The detective was quite mystified by the screams until he realized that the killer was one Joe Aaaargh, alias Joe Eeeech, alias Joe Uuuuugh.
  • The New Yorker had a cartoon by Roz Chast called "No Action Comics." It had sound effects like "MULL! MULL!" and "WORRY! WORRY!"
    • Similarly, The Daily Show featured a comic mocking George W. Bush with sound effects such as "STALL!".
  • Frequently used in Twisted Toyfare Theatre. Examples include Spider-Man running across some assorted Beanie Baby animals. Some go "moo moo", some go "oink oink" and some go "kangaroo sound kangaroo sound". And when he gets them to stampede, it's "angry moo, angry moo" and "angry kangaroo sound, angry kangaroo sound".
    • (What sound does a kangaroo make, anyhow?...)
  • German comic artist Ralf König is good at this. he rather describes the mood of scenes with his unsounds. One scene shows a guy laying in bed, hearing "sounds" like "cooking coffee" and "doorclap".
  • The Tick is also fond of this, with the best being "CONTEMPLATE!"
  • Amerimanga Ninja High School has used literal sound effects from the beginning of its run. They do sort of mirror manga's onomonepetic effects, but Ben Dunn has admitted he got the idea from Richie Rich.
    • One example: a character lifts a huge tree out of the ground, to the sound of *UPROOT*
  • Several comics have featured huge explosions with the unintentionally (maybe) hilarious BA-THROOM! sound effect.
    • Sound of a toilet blowing up?
      • "Quick, Robin! To the Bat-Hroom!"
  • The City Of Heroes comic has a mook cry out in pain: "MMORPG!!"
  • De Familie Fortuin, a Dutch comic about the titular white trash family, has used such sound effects as *ENORMOUS EXPLOSION! FLYING BODY PARTS! BLEEDING GUMS! COOL MAN!* and *EXPLODING SCHOOL WITH EVERYONE INSIDE!*.
  • Another Dutch comic, De Generaal had one when the eponymous general is dropped with tank and all from a hot air balloon (don't ask): *SMASH OF GIGANTIC PROPORTIONS!*
  • A series of Disney albums had Goofy playing different historical persons. In the Beethoven story all sound words were composer names. Knocking on a door sounded like BACH BACH, knocking over a pile of stuff produced a loud BRAHMS and so on.
  • Speaking of Disney, a Darkwing Duck comic in Disney Adventures had some offstage action indicated with words like "BLUDGEON" and "ASPHYXIATE." Lampshaded by onlookers.
  • Does it count if you shoot vampires with a BANG BANG BANG ETC.... (in neat Ariel font, no less)?
  • BOWL! DREAM! MAGIC!
  • Incredible Hercules no longer even tries to have standard sound effects. Instead, the sound of an impressive punch to the face is WHATAMANNN, a dragon's firebreath goes SMAAAAAAAAAUG and an attack aimed squarely at the opponent's nipples is represented with a bright purple NURP.

Film
  • During an action sequence in Hot Fuzz, Nicolas Angel actually says "Idea!" where you might otherwise have the 'ding' of an Ideabulb. Later, his partner shouts "Bang! Bang!" while firing a gun...for no reason whatsoever.
  • Subtitles for the hearing impaired can come off a bit like this when done badly. There's no better mood killer in the middle of a romantic moment than seeing *dramatic music intensifies* pop up on screen.
    • How about "Cows moo"?

Literature
  • Gaspode, a talking dog in the Discworld series, says 'woof'. Due to a near-universal Weirdness Censor, this mostly just makes people look at him funny.
    • And there's a recurring theme in Discworld of "words for the sounds that things would make if they did make a sound except that they don't".

Live Action TV
  • Monty Python's "Bicycle Repairman" sketch had intertitle cards with effects like: "Screw!", "Bend!", "Inflate!", and "Alter Saddle!"
    • Monty Python also had the traffic court sketch, in which the jury and audience react to a surprising revelation by saying, in unison, "Consternation! Uproar!"
  • The 1960s Batman TV series did this in every fight scene.
    • The Monkees parody this in one episode with a fight that has words like Rumble! Plink! Plank! Plunk! Miss! Foo! Bing! Bong! Bang! Splat! Kretch! Plop! Splinter! on the screen. (At the word Kretch, Peter Tork stops fighting, looks into the camera, and says, "Kretch???" before they agree to stop fighting and start breaking furniture.)
    • The Avengers also parodies this in "The Winged Avenger." At the end of the episode, Steed fights the villain by hitting him with poster-sized mockups of comic book panels, each containing a word like "Pow!" and "Splat!" Meanwhile, "Batman"-like music is playing in the background.
  • When a piece of viewer mail on Attack Of The Show asked what kind of sound effect they would want to have if they were in a comic, Kevin Pereira admitted he would want the word "SKANK!" to pop up when he slapped someone in the face.
  • The Muppet Show did a sketch entirely in action and spoken sound/unsound words. It started with a creature (possibly played by Animal) trudging through the wilderness while muttering "trudge trudge trudge" until it got interrupted by something flying past with a loud "FLY! FLY!" which made it stop and go "ponder... ponder... ponder..." as it, well, pondered the strange event. After this had happened a couple of times the wanderer lost its patience and went "fret foam" as it picked up a hesvy stick, and the next time the flyer passed it got stopped by a massive SMASH SMASH!
  • On The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien visits a Foley stage and makes his own sound effects, including a shout of "Throw baby!" when a character throws a baby.

Newspaper Comics
  • In an early (1950s-era) Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown is perplexed when one of his friends jumps into a pond with a "ker-SPLASH!", and another one jumps into a pile of leaves with a "ker-LEAF!".
  • One Bloom County featured the wonderfully memorable " unprovoked KICK!"
  • A Calvin And Hobbes strip has Calvin walking around in Galoshes that go "Galosh galosh galosh"
    • In a school strip Susie asks Calvin to name the old capitol of Poland, and hears him mutter "KRAKOW! KRAKOW!" which happens to be the right answer but is really a sound effect from his daydram about Spaceman Spiff fighting aliens.
  • The Wizard of Id is fond of this trope, using such sound effects as "Deliberate deliberate deliberate" for a jury.
  • There is a Garfield comic where Garfield is unscrewing a saltshaker with the sound effect *unscrew* hanging in midair. It's unclear how that sounds any different from just plain ol' screwing.
  • One Foxtrot strip used *crank* and *uncrank* for the sound of someone turning up, then turning down, a thermostat.
  • For Better or For Worse is in love with this trope—partly because every other Sunday strip is mostly silent, save for the Unsound Effects flying all over the place. One panel where the family dog was eating something was accompanied by *gobble snarf eat*.
    • Another, dealing with Elly's frustrations with a fax/copier, had UNPLUG, although the design of the balloon made it ambiguous whether that was a sound effect or Elly loudly vocalizing the action as a form of venting.
  • A Zits strip showed Jeremy taking a test, with the Unsound Effect "Essay! Essay! Essay! Essay! Essay!"
  • Pens in the Pearls Before Swine world make "write write write" and "scribble scribble scribble" sounds when used. The creator, Stefan Pastis, admits to this bit of creative license in the book commentaries.

Music
  • P.D.Q. Bach's Good King Kong Looked Out has a choir singing an Unsound Effect - "hear", in this case - because seriously, what onomatopoeia could possibly used?

Video Games

Web Animation
  • On Homestar Runner, the Teen Girl Squad comics do this a lot. "Children!" "MSG'd!" "Weirded Out!" "Late 360 Shove-It to Boneless'd!" and the immortal "POSSUMS..."
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd parodies the Adam West Batman show's visual onomatopoeia in the second Batman episode. Visuals include "Biff! Marty!", "Splash!", "Jugyiop!", "Wakawaka!", and "FUCKBALLS!"
    • Likewise, whenever the Adam West's Batman's theme song plays in The Nostalgia Critic, similar visuals may be included, such as "LAME!" or "PLAGIARISM!"
  • One segment from AMV Hell 4 involved a Paranoia Agent / Batman mash-up. In it, Shonen Bat/Lil' Slugger is beating down people with his bat, while the typical Written Sound Effect staples seen in Adam West's Batman. The last one of the bunch (it's very briefly seen; you have to be quick to catch it) is OMGWTF!. The clip was titled "Shonen Batman".
  • The Ogres on Unforgotten Realms frequently mutter the words "Ogre Sounds" to no one in particular.
  • Yahtzee does this occasionally in his Zero Punctuation reviews. One notable example showed someone rotoscoping images by sitting at a computer that made the sound, "Rotoscope rotoscope."

Web Comics

Web Original
  • Some hovertext on CuteOverload includes "Perforate! Unspool!" and then goes into "Verb! Another verb! Yet another completely different verb!"
  • During The Angry Video Game Nerd's fight with the Joker in the second half of his Batman review, sound effects such as 'MARTY', 'JUGYIOP', and 'FUCKBALLS' appear.

Western Animation
  • Fairly Odd Parents once had "Replacement hamster!" as a Written Sound Effect. For someone being punched: HURT!
    • Unsound Effects are practically a Running Gag on Fairly Odd Parents at this point; they show up in nearly every episode.
    • The words written on the "Poof" clouds when Cosmo and Wanda (actually any magic-using character, actually) does something with magic are usually related to a wish or another event. Norm the Genie, on the other hand, only has "GONG!". The Pixies have "PING!", as well. Unsound effects show up a great deal in the Crimson Chin comics, which of course are parodies of normal superhero comics, which love this trope.
      KA-CHIN!
    • The best comes from the opening cutscene of a Fairly Odd Parents videogame, where Cosmo summons up Da Rules with the "Poof" cloud "PLOT DEVICE!"
  • Appearances by Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy on Sponge Bob Square Pants often use these as part of their being a Batman spoof: "HANG UP!" "SIT!" "WINK!"
    • KING ME! when the characters were playing checkers.
    • Not to mention the production values of their old show: PROP! CARDBOARD! LAME!
  • The Looney Tunes short "Now Hear This" climaxes with a gigantic explosion, accompanied by the words "GIGANTIC EXPLOSION" appearing onscreen, probably one of the most unimaginative onomatopoeia ever devised.
  • When the townspeople of South Park get upset, they form a mob and just yell "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!"

Real Life
  • Truth In Television: Used in online games with text-only communication, or text-only communications for that matter. For example, *slap* means you slapped someone. *Bang head* means your headbanging, and so forth, and who could forget *Facepalm*?
  • And let's not forget *huggles*, *pokes*, *tackles*, and *flies off*.
    • I was trying my best not to remember them.

That Poor CatSound FX TropesWalkie Talkie Static
Unpleasable FanbaseWebcomic TropesWacky College
Odd Shaped PanelSequential ArtVisible Silence
True Art Is IncomprehensibleAbsurdity AscendantWave Of Babies
Unflinching WalkSpectacleUsed Future
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