1

How do I prolong the sound of a word in writing, while maintaining its natural sound? I want to prolong the sound of these words:

Doh
Rei
Mi
Fah
Sol

If I write Doooooh, people might read it as doooo-oh.

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  • 5
    It's Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do. If you write Doh, everybody will think Homer Simpson. Nov 8, 2014 at 17:43
  • Homer's phrase is usually written D'oh!
    – Barmar
    Nov 9, 2014 at 22:57
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    If the context makes it clear that the words come from the musical scale, they'll realize that Dooooooo is just an elongated Do.
    – Barmar
    Nov 9, 2014 at 22:58

2 Answers 2

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Like they do in written choral music, use hyphens between the stretched out sounds (similar to what @seagull answered) except it would not be using phonetic spellings, as in their example.

So for Do Re Mi Fa... it might be written as:

"D-o-o-o, R-e-e-e, M-I-I-I, F-a-a-a, etc.

If it was words instead of sounds, the reader probably wouldn't be confused.

Another method, again borrowed from music, is to draw a line extending out from the word to be stretched, like in this example:

copyrights to Warner Chappell Music Limited

1

I recall an old tactic hymn writers used to use where a dash would represent a longer vowel sound. For instance:

Do-h Re-i Mi- Fa-h So-l

etc.

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