Asklemmy

43159 readers

1534 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

156

In your area/country, did you have a word or phrase to describe the static white noise on a television set not tuned to a channel? (upload.wikimedia.org)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

104 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Bonus points if there's a known onomatopoeia to describe the sound.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In Poland it was „śnieży” (snowing).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

How’s that pronounced? Sorry for coming achoo with too many cultural questions

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I am not even able to write it phonetically in English. Ask Google Translate - its pronunciation is close-enough.

In IPA it is: /ɕɲɛʑɨ/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

…and if you are interested in the sound of static rather than the image, then the Polish word is: „szumi”. This can be approximated in English as: 'shoomy'. The 'sz' sound does sound like static.

The funny thing is that our 'sz' (in „szumi”) and 'ś' (in „śnieży”) usually sound exactly the same to English or French speakers, while for us they are quite distinct sounds.