| Buccal interdental trill | |
|---|---|
| ↀ͡r̪͆ | |
| ↀ |
| Voiceless linguolabial trill | |
|---|---|
| r̼̊ | |
| ʙ̺̊ | |
| IPA number | 122 + 407 + 402A |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | r̼̥ |
| Unicode (hex) | U+0072 U+033C U+0325 |
Blowing a raspberry, also known as giving a Bronx cheer, is making 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!"[1][2]
In the terminology of phonetics, the raspberry has been described as a voiceless linguolabial trill, transcribed [r̼̊] in the International Phonetic Alphabet,[3] and as a buccal interdental trill, transcribed [ↀ͡r̪͆] in the Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet, which suggests that ↀ may be used as an abbreviation when the symbol occurs a lot.[4]
The nomenclature varies by country. In most anglophone countries, it is known as a raspberry, which is attested from at least 1890,[5] and which in the United States had been shortened to razz by 1919.[6] The term originates in rhyming slang, where "raspberry tart" means "fart".[7] In the United States it has also been called a Bronx cheer since at least the early 1920s.[8][9]
....the East will grin and give Western football the jolly old Bronx cheer.
While the crowd was giving vent to the 'Bronx cheer' and hurling garlands of raspberries from the gallery....
