GARP

[scarfman]

Comments

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

You don't transliterate that kind of laugh. It just doesn't work.

The word for it, though, is "snigger."

See also Muttley.

[scarfman]

Oh, I disagree with that. Ernie's laugh is too wholehearted and lacking malice to be a snigger.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

A chuckle or a chortle, maybe?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Both have a throaty quality- they're both voiced. Ernie's is basically a non-sibilant hiss.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

True. What about a snerk, then? Or is that also too malicious, do you think?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

A snerk is just an amused snort- nothing malicious about it, necessarily.

Unfortunately, the snerk is a solitary creature, and not given to traveling in groups- much less machine-gun series like what Ernie has.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

Are we going to have to go ahead and invent a whole new word for Ernie's laugh here? I'm kind of in favour of "snerkle", myself. :D

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Malice doesn't enter into it, much. I just can't recall a single time Ernie laughed that it wasn't at someone else's expense, usually Bert's.

[scarfman]

Oh yeah, there are plenty of times where, situationally, you would otherwise have inferred malice. But it's Ernie.