'zap, zowie, bam, socko, wow, oof, wham, bing'

In "Sin and Syntax", Constance Hale describes the effect and usefulness of onomatopoeia, citing Dr. Seuss as a paradigm of sound word use. She also mentions onomatopoeia's role in comics (which is where the title of this blog post is from--page 230, if you're interested).

Anyway, here's what I think of when I think of onomatopoeia: