Onomatopoltergeists Vanoosh!

 Onomatopoltergeists Vanoosh!

If onomatopoeia is the use of words whose sound, like buzz, hiss, crack, or smack, suggests the sense, here’s a word I coined to suggest the sound of spooks, “onomatopoltergeist.”  We hear these frequently in our house…

–In the baseboard heaters, phantoms sound like steps getting closer, clunking into things.

–in a bedroom wall, ghosts creak and groan;

–behind our fridge, wraiths cry out in the night;

–and once the doorbell rang in the night, waking us up, but no one was at the door.

These poltergeists, we surmise, are Bernie and Dot, the original owners who lived here for fifty years and passed away years ago. We, of course, don’t know for sure. We do know the origin of this spooky word because I coined it,  “vanoosh,” a combination of “vanish and whoosh.” It is the flying-off-the-plate of still warm chocolate chip cookies into the mouths of our four young grandsons. Vanoosh followed by yum! Could Bernie and Dot be in cahoots with the boys to vanoosh the cookies? You be the judge.