Talk:Phonaesthetics

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Weasel terms. The sentence: "The French language is considered extremely euphonic by many, and has a plethora of contraction rules that allow one word to flow into the next." does not seem backed up and contains the terms: "considered extremely ... by many", seem like weasel terms to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.147.43.82 (talk) 03:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Cacophony

Why is there no section on cacophony? There is a redirect here, but no information on the subject whatsoever. Can we fix this? 98.247.162.244 (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

British Accent

The phrase cellar door has some notoriety as the reputedly most euphonic sound combination of the English language (specifically, when spoken with a British accent).

Which British accent? There are dozens, and many are quite different from one another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.142.195 (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Phonaesthetics vs euphony

Euphony and euphonic, by what I've read and heard are far more common terms than phonaesthetics. If this is just a quirk of my life experience than my comment here can be easily disregarded. I really believe this article would be much better under the name euphony. Euphony is far more used. Phonaesthetics is a stilted, artificial sounding, uneuphonic term that is probably seldom the term people initially enter to find this article.Tjc (talk) 11:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Major Changes Needed

This is entire article is in desperate need of a linguist. Everything is entirely subjective. This is part of the point of phonaesthetics, since phonaesthetic judgments ARE subjective, but what is presented here is presented as if it's objective truth, and it is not. I'd almost recommend deleting the entire article, because as it stands it's mostly disinformation. 67.58.142.175 (talk) 22:59, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Caribou gone

This seems relevant: Monty Python - Woody and Tinny Words - Soulkeeper (talk) 10:11, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Sourcing

As noted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phonaesthetics, sources for this topic are scarce. The following might be helpful.

• Firth, John Rupert (1964), The Tongues of Men, and Speech, Oxford University Press
• Holmes, John (2010), "Inside a song: Tolkien's phonaesthetics", in Bradford Lee Eden (ed.), Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien, McFarland, pp. 26–47, ISBN 978-0-7864-5660-4
• Noss, Phillip (2003), "Translating the Ideophone", The Creative Circle: Artist, Critic, and Translator in African Literature, Africa World Press, p. 40, ISBN 978-1-59221-042-8
• Perung, William (2013), "'Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair': A Phonoaesthetic Study into the Perceptions of Native English Speakers about Certain Speech Sounds", Lund University Student Papers
• Plett, Heinrich (2010), Literary Rhetoric: Concepts – Structures – Analyses, BRILL, p. 97, ISBN 90-04-17113-4
• Robbins, Susan (2013), "Beauty in Language: Tolkien's Phonology and Phonaesthetics as a Source of Creativity and Inspiration for the Lord of the Rings", Žmogus ir Žodis [Man and the World]

Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 03:20, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The citation to Harper's Magazine is not correct. I tried making an edit, but I was doing things that destroyed the links to the Notes: and rearranged the footnotes. Putting note here for someone better able to make the corrections. The reference to Harper's Magazine should not mention William Dean Howells, as he is not credited with the comment. It should be an issue in September 1905 (Volume 111, Number 664), not March. The comment appears on a page of jokes and humorous anecdotes called "Editor's Drawer," not "Editor's Easy Chair" (which is a feature of the magazine, but unrelated to this citation). The page number is 645, which appears to be the same as the one already referenced. The comments are anonymous, not attributed to a particular writer. A link to the comment on HathiTrust is here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924054824168&seq=715&q1=cellar door Svaihingen (talk) 01:07, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Cellar door be merged into Phonaesthetics. Both articles are currently quite vague, but Cellar door in particular seems to contain a lot of primary research and doesn't really make sense (or seem notable in its own right) in its current form - for example, it asserts that the phrase is the most beautiful 'in the English' language without making any allowance for how it may sound in the hundreds of different dialects.

Phonaesthetics would probably be improved by including the phrase as a common example. Gkmotorsport (talk) 08:57, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Gkmotorsport! I'd be in favor of the merge. In fact, I'd be willing to even strip the Cellar door article of all unsourced information and performing the merge, if you'd like. Wolfdog (talk) 14:29, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Through this merger, the information has been corrupted/lost, in this article, Tolkien's view on cellar door has been directed as being one-sided, yes he agrees that Cellar-door is a beautiful phrase.. however, what this article fails to mention is that he referred to the Welsh language as being abundant in Cellar-doors, how could this information by deleted? shouldn't this important part of history be documented within phonaesthetics? I understand that this version of Wiki is the English one, however, you can't just emit a whole other part to Tolkien's thoughts, his views, his character for a simplified page, wiki should be a place of information, all of it, good/bad & the ugly more information is power, less is bad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hogyncymru (talk • contribs) 02:28, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I also don't agree with the merger (although I think Hogyncymru's point about Welsh would be irrelevant in any restored "cellar door" article).

• Category:Phonaesthetics has lots of articles; if anything I would merge Phonaesthetics with Phonesthesia, but in any case leave cellar door as one of the many subarticles.
• Looking at the pre-merger article (or indeed my 2010 version):
  • Gkmotorsport's claim that it asserts that the phrase is the most beautiful 'in the English' language is simply untrue; the article rather says that many people have made such an assertion. Likewise I don't see how it is vague or doesn't really make sense. I would say it is notable in the same way as Orange (word)#Rhyme is. The one valid claim is that it relies too much on primary sources; not grounds for a merger, though.
  • Wolfdog's attempted summary introduces errors. It says that Geoffrey Nunberg specifically names Robertson, van Loon, Terhune, and implies that he gives dates for Mencken, Parker, and Nathan; and (similar to Gkmotorsport's error) claims these authors promoted the claim when some merely mentioned it.

jnestorius^(talk) 16:43, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jnestorius: The criticism of my summary is an easy enough change that you yourself can make. Wolfdog (talk) 17:20, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

That was only one example of multiple errors and infelicities. I favour restoring the separate article. The summary here would then be much briefer; I don't intend to rewrite it in the meantime. jnestorius^(talk) 18:21, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't include Tolkien unless you're willing to address why he used 'Cellar-door'

When Tolkien speaks about 'Cellar-doors' he's not just saying it's a beautiful phrase, he's actually making a comparison to the Welsh language and how 'cellar-doors' are 'abundant', if he didn't mention this connection, he wouldn't have said anything at all about 'cellar-door', the context IS the Welsh language.

Now what he's referring to in the Welsh language is 'Treiglo', a process of which words 'mutate' depending on where they are used (almost every sentence that is spoken), he did Celtic studies at Oxford and this is why he made that connection and when he was a child watching train carts arrive and depart from Birmingham with 'strange' but ancient words written on them (Welsh place-names which coal, slate and metals were sourced from), he began his obsession with languages, particularly first with the Celtic tongues, only after did he branch out and learn other European languages and as so, grew this wild imagination in his mind (to which his stories were born from).

So Tolkien's 'Cellar-doors' quote deserves far more attention than a simple footnote at the end of the article, learn from what he uncovered, learn from what he taught, there is much to be added to this article than his simple 'Cellar door is beautiful', there is context here, and he saw that the phonaesthetics of 'Cellar-door' is extraordinarily rife within the Welsh language, maybe someone should attempt to address this instead of adding pointless, torn up remarks by people without appropriate context.

See link for 'Treiglo' in which Tolkien was addressing in his 'Cellar-door' remark.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Welsh_Grammar,_Historical_and_Comparative/Phonology

Hogyncymru (talk) 21:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Other literary examples

It could be interesting to include some literary examples. From this site: https://www.openculture.com/2016/06/bertrand-russell-lists-his-20-favorite-words-in-1958-and-what-are-some-of-yours.html David Foster Wallace’s lists of favorite words consist of obscurities and archaisms unlikely to ever feature in the average conversation. “James Joyce thought cuspidor the most beautiful word in the English language,” writes the blog Futility Closet,” Arnold Bennet chose pavement. J.R.R. Tolkien felt the phrase cellar door had an especially beautiful sound.” From: https://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/09/06/sound-choices/ Bertrand Russell’s 20 favorite words, given in response to a reader’s inquiry in 1958 From: https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/david-foster-wallaces-lists-of-his-favorite-words.html David Foster Wallace Creates Lists of His Favorite Words From: https://journals.openedition.org/signata/1245?lang=en Eco tackled each problem with enthusiasm, and I found myself thinking how, as a university professor, his enthusiasm must have inspired generations of students. He showed the same keenness for English as he did for his native tongue—he once declared that his two favourite English words were “flabbergasted” and “discombobulated”. --79.55.55.107 (talk) 21:00, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Bias in editing regarding Tolkien's Cellar Door quote?

Why are some editors opting to remove the exact phrase Tolkien said? the full paragraph goes as following:

"Most English-speaking people ... will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant." (can be found in Carpenter's Letters);

People (editors) have tried to add the Welsh part to this article in the past but for some reason it got removed, why add one part to what he said without giving the context to the rest? is there a bias in the editing? Hogyncymru (talk) 14:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)