We simply have no words for smells. Acrid, I suppose, comes close to being an abstract word for a smell, but it's more like a kind of smell than a specific one: It's more about an unpleasant burning sensation caused by a smell. We have lots of modifiers like that: Smells are pungent or heady or nauseating. But those words aren't specific smells in themselves.
— From A pungent puzzle at the Globe and Mail.
How about green, for leafy/mossy scents, does that count?
Fascinating. “Smoky” has so many meanings. Apple wood smoke? Hickory, oak, rubber, rags, kerosene, ham?
Now, just a sec – – do we really need adjectives that exclusively describe scent? This blog is testimony to the infinite variety of metaphor and analogy, descriptors and modifiers, that apply to fragrances. I am not feeling a vacuum of words, personally.
I don't think so…again, it's comparing to something else.
Yes…none of the terms we use are very precise, are they?
Interesting. I'm not sure that I agree! Besides pungent, acrid, and the like, what about green, smoky, woody, fruity, spicy, boozy? Any hey – while we're at it – what about bold, quiet, sharp, and smooth? Words that describe taste, touch, and even sound can also do perfectly good service conveying olfactory impressions.
I'm not feeling a vacuum of words either — but it is interesting conceptually that our language includes so few precise words to describe what things smell like!
Hey — “selective amplification” — now that's really a useful term! I remember people bemoaning certain reviews in The Guide that had “ruined” perfumes for them — all they could smell was the burnt rubber, or hairspray, or whatever in a once beloved scent. That is exactly what happens…
I think that's what the author places under the heading of synesthetic descriptors. I rather have to agree with him, they're not “meant for” the olfactory realm, after all. It used to bother me a lot, I always envisaged my perfect scent and could never convey what I meant to SA's. Being wordy as I am, that felt like such a defeat!
Still, I don't think there's an actual problem with the vocab currently in use; it works. It just takes some getting used to for anyone new, it's not fully instinctive.
OK – I read the whole article, and I see the author's point. But I still think that the relatively concrete terms we use, along with some poetic license at times, do a fine job!
Yes, yes, yes!! Happens all the time.
Yes, this was the most interesting part of the article for me. (Smith is consistently interesting, by the way.) I don't find selective amplification ruins the experience for me, though. Luca Turin writes “Orange Peel” or “Gunpowder” and I smell, thinking, “Hey! Never noticed that before!” I think it's fun and adds a new dimension to smelling the abstract.
Yes, agree — it's not a bad thing at all.
Perhaps it also has to do with the English and American-English languages, and the culture(s) in which they are used. Perhaps, in these cultures, smells, scents and odors are things that, historically, are taboo conversation subjects.
Maybe scent has been viewed as being too close to-dare I write it? Yes, I dare!- sex! (There! I wrote it!) We have more words in any given language for the really important topics. For example, in the Eskimo language, there are at least 26 different words for “snow”. In English, we have to describe whole paragraphs, or at the least, use long sentences when describing snow, and the Eskimo people can use only one word, and that gives the listener a very good idea of the type of snow, its temperature, texture, whether it's light or heavy, and so on.
Maybe, in our culture(s) the phenomenon of scents is only comparatively recently being brought to light, and so we just do not have the words for it all yet. What do you think?
All of that makes sense, yes, and to some extent I think smell (or at least, some smell issues) are still taboo subjects.
Hmm, I know exactly what kind of smell I am dealing with when I am told something is rancid and this doesn't appear to derive from anything else (apart from 'rank', but that doesn't give the same sense of oils going a particular kind of stinky).
I think that, as the sense of taste is so very closely entwined with the sense of smell (a part of every mouthful appeals to the nose as much as the palate) I 'm pretty sure that I can smell sour, salty, sweet and savoury, too.
Good point!