Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[bunn]

I have recently become particularly sensitive to cries of 'Noooooooo!' at climactic moments in movies.   I may even have gone so far as to say 'I don't think people actually say 'nooooooo!' in moments of crisis.'    

And then this evening, Ruggie tried to go trotting into the house, having fallen over in a thick muddy puddle, and being deeply encrusted with mud.  The noise I made as I leaped to grab him before he hit the carpet was pretty much exactly :  Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Comments

[hhimring]

A moment of real drama!
I think dog owners do say that quite a lot...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think as a sighthound owner, I'm used to disaster happening so fast that I don't even get a change to ...N :-D

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY like that!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I can cope with "noooooo!" being wailed in a film, since I think it's an entirely sensible thing to wail in a situation where you start it as a desperate command, and it turns into a wail of despair when it becomes plain that the command isn't being heeded. However, I can't cope with it in writing, since I invariably read it as "noo" and imagine it said in the accent of Sir Bedevere failing to say "Ni!" properly, which tends to kill any dramatic tension that the author was hoping to produce.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Often though, you get it as a reaction, rather than an instruction: X is torn apart by tentacles, Y responds : NOOOOOOOOOO!

That's the kind of NOOOOOOO! I can't be doing with. If it's an instruction, as you suggest, that is permissible, indeed perhaps even useful in context.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I think human tests are called for, perhaps using a crowd of football fans as test subjects. I have certainly heard wails of despair issuing from pubs showing a Big Match; seeing England throwing away their latest chance to score probably elicits similar emotions to seeing your friend torn apart by tentacles. Are any of these wailing people shouting "Nooo!" and if so, how many?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Wails of despair, loud profanities, wordless expressions of violent frustration, yes.

I am unconvinced that cries of Nooooooooooooooooooooo! would make the list. Any test would need to differentiate between 'NO!' [acceptable] and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! [by my premise, just a tad OTT.]

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Seems reasonable. I make that cry on a fairly regular basis, though not usually until I have seen a trail of muddy black paw-prints leading into the house towards the sofa.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm not used to it! I'm used to more-or-less non-stick dogs with stupidly long legs who hate mud!

So my cry was unusual, but none the less heartfelt!

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

There's always a tipping point; I hope you managed to save the day! :-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I did indeed manage to intercept him as the first huge mud-encrusted paw descended towards the carpet!

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

I do that too, usually as one of the cats zooms off, clutching some feebly struggling small animal in its jaws. If I shout loudly enough, sometimes the surprise will cause them to drop it. Occasionally I substitute "AAAAAAAHHH!"