"Ay"

 He had sailed for two hours, resting in the stern and sometimes chewing a bit of the meat from the martin, trying to rest and to be strong, when he saw the first of the two sharks.

"Ay ," he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.

Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea