Blowing a raspberry

File:Blowing a raspberry.ogv

A man blowing a raspberry

Blowing a raspberry is to make a noise similar to flatulence that may signify derision. It is made by placing the tongue between the lips and blowing.

A raspberry when used with the tongue is not used in any human language as a building block of words, apart from jocular exceptions such as the name of the comic-book character Joe Btfsplk. However, the vaguely similar bilabial trill (essentially blowing a raspberry with one's lips) is a regular consonant sound in a few dozen languages scattered around the world.

Spike Jones and His City Slickers used a "birdaphone" to create this sound on their recording of "Der Fuehrer's Face", repeatedly lambasting Adolf Hitler with: "We'll Heil! (Bronx cheer) Heil! (Bronx cheer) Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In the terminology of phonetics, the raspberry has been described as a voiceless linguolabial trill, transcribed {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in the International Phonetic Alphabet,<ref>Pike called it a "voiceless exolabio-lingual trill", with the tongue vibrating against a protruding lower lip. Template:Cite book</ref> and as a buccal interdental trill, transcribed {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in the Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Name

The nomenclature varies by country. In most anglophone countries, it is known as a raspberry, which is attested from at least 1890,<ref>Template:OED</ref> and which in the United States had been shortened to razz by 1919.<ref>Template:OED</ref> The term originates in rhyming slang, where "raspberry tart" means "fart".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the United States it has also been called a Bronx cheer since at least the early 1920s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Golden Raspberry Awards, which are named after the term
• Linguistic universal
• The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town
• Flatulence humor

References

Template:Reflist {{#related:Rhyming slang}}