Today I was writing a story for my creative writing class, and I wanted to indicate that somebody was taking a deep breath through their nose. Now, like anybody else, I simply wrote "...and she took a deep breath through her nose...", pretty simple, pretty easy. But what if it could be easier. I began to think of ways that you could write the noise made when inhaling through the nose. I thought for a while, no progress. I asked some friends, no progress. I googled it, no progress. I concluded that there is no proper way to spell the sound of an inhale that does the sound justice.

This made me think deeper into this idea. In a perfect world, our alphabet would be efficient enough to spell any sound. That way, any sound that we hear, we can document in writing. Unfortunately, we do not live in this perfect world. I can't write down how a rushing river sounds, or what a hammer sounds like when it hits a nail, or what a wave sounds like when it crashes. I can use "woosh" or "bang" as much as I want, but pronounce the word woosh out loud, it sounds nothing like the sound of a river. That being said, just because you can't spell it, doesn't mean the sound doesn't exist. In fact, it shows that the letters we are given limit us, and won't let us spell the things we want to spell.