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Woody or tinny?

From:Bjorn Kristinsson <bjornkri@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 15, 2001, 10:17
Hi

I've noticed most asked seem to say that they're building of a vocabulary is
generally done on an aesthetic basis; either by using 'nice' or even
'beautiful' words for 'beautiful' meanings and 'ugly' words for 'ugly'
meanings, or vice versa. Or just one of these (probably more common, we all
want out conlang to sound beautiful, don't we? :)

This made me wonder, people on this list generally seem to have a preference
for how a word should sound, and then I presume there must be a preference
for how they should NOT sound. So, can you name me some words (natlang
probably, conlang if you've got them) that you find particularly ugly?

Two words of English I particularly dislike are 'queue' and 'genre' (the
latter with most sorts of American accent is appalling to my ear). Dunno
why, no explanations needed :)

Bring 'em if you've got 'em

Bjorn


P.S. Just remembered a story about JRR Tolkien I heard once and it went
something like this: he said that in his mind the most beautiful word he had
ever heard was 'Selador', and everyone around him agreed that 'Selador' was
indeed a particularly beautiful word. Later, Tolkien pointed out that it was
pronounced just like the more familiar word, 'cellar-door'. :)

Replies

J Matthew Pearson <pearson@...>
Frank George Valoczy <valoczy@...>
Irina Rempt <ira@...>
Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Andrew Chaney <adchaney@...>
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