The idea that smelling good (or smelling "right") can engender romantic and, ultimately, sexual activity is obviously not a new concept. But frankly readers, the market is so entirely flooded with bad, meaningless, poorly put-together fragrances, that I think you deserve to know which to spend your money on.
— Columnist Tina Gaudoin gives her recommendations for Valentine's Day fragrances, in Scents and Sensuality at the Wall Street Journal.
I really like Tina Gaudoin! I’m jumping over to read this right now. Thanks!!
Good!
This is a great article, and refreshing to read someone who doesn’t go down the usual route and actually lists some perfumes with merit or not celebrity/mainstream fodder.
It’s better than many.
Love this article as I wear most of what it deems the ‘classiest, sexiest’ fragrances. Also, re: Avignon. My fiance’s father was raised by a very devoutly Catholic mother and so when I initially began wearing Avignon I was very cautious b/c is just smells that much like Mass.
Ha, then she must be right
I’d like to know what ‘frankly readers’ are. LOL! (It’s not the most hilarious thing that’s ever been created by the absence of a comma before a vocative, but still…. bad writing.)
There should be a comma before (and after) a vocative. Always.
There are no editors anymore, as you know.
I do indeed. *sigh*
Most people display a peculiar blindness when it comes to that comma: they write things like, ‘Stuff this sarge, I can see how you earned your stripes.’ (Some story about a Detective Sergeant in the London Evening Standard.) What? *This* sergeant as opposed to *that* sergeant? LOL! And instead of being slightly rude it becomes positively obscene.
LOL!
Obscene comma absences!
My dad always comments on the street signs that say “Slow Children Playing.” (Then he mimes kids playing ball in slo-mo.)
I might beg to differ. (William F. Buckley too.) There would be too many commas and the sentence would be choppy. She writes her column like she’s talking to you. It’s the style of the column. It’s not reporting on the front page.
I’m afraid you (and he) are wrong. The comma before and after a vocative is a requirement. The ‘number’ of commas in a sentence is irrelevant: there should be as many commas as the sentence needs to be easily understandable. Punctuation does not reflect speech; it follows the rules of grammar. The fact that one may not pause before a vocative when speaking doesn’t negate the need for that particular comma. As I have shown in my other example, its absence very often leads to complete nonsense. And grammar and punctuation are there to ‘help’, not hinder, the reader. You shouldn’t have to do a double take and try to figure out what the writer might have meant, when reading a text: it should be instantly intelligible.
Yes, the sentence should be instantly intelligible, easily understandable, etc.. And in this case, it is, without the comma. And yes, commas should help, not hinder. I think an extra comma would have hindered the way it’s read. In your other example, I agree a comma was needed. But not here. This is exactly the kind of quibble William F. Buckley relished!
Grammar rant: I agree that the “frankly readers” example is intelligible without the comma. I’m not wild about the argument that helpful punctuation rules should be dismissed in the name of style, though. This is journalism and not a W.M. Spackman novel. I found the article awkward to read in places, so, in my opinion, the conversational style was not flawlessly executed anyway.
Have not heard WM Spackman mentioned in so long I forgot he existed. And I adored his writing at some point, so long ago that I was probably an entirely different person.
You’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter that the sentence is intelligible without a comma: there are lots of instances where a punctuation mark might seem to be unnecessary for comprehension. Most of the time one doesn’t need a question mark at the end of a question: the order of words indicates quite clearly that it is a question; still a question mark is required. Just like that comma. It’s not a matter of opinion: it’s correct grammar, that’s all. Non-negotiable.
Bela – and I’m sure I don’t need to ask your feelings on the current usage (even by news commentators!) of the subjective case of pronouns when the objective case is called for. Makes me cringe every time!
I’m a regular reader of her columns in the WSJ, and yes, her style is not conventional and sometimes a little jarring, almsot like she’s trying too hard to be conversational. That’s her writing style. Her clothing style is nearly impeccable, I think!
Sorry about the long delay: I got distracted and completely forgot about this thread. Old age, you know!
I agree with you, but, oh, there are so many things that make me cringe. These days, I scream every time I hear, ‘I was stood….’. Even BBC reporters say it! Aaaaargh.
I love you so much right now, Bela! I can’t get this across to people, ever! Telling people to think about where they pause when saying the phrase doesn’t always help, either. (I’m so glad I’m not a teacher. Or an editor!)
Thank you. LOL!
Nicely written article. I’m struck again with the vast range of smells that people find “sexy” – very few of the ones on Ms Gaudoin’s list would make my personal list! All the same, she’s talking about something other than the ubiquitous red berries and pink musk, so I approve.
Great article, Robin! Thanks for posting. I’m interested in that E. Corday re-issue.
YES!! One of the things I love about this blog is that everyone is so aware of their (oops–his/her ;)) writing. As a former English teacher, I am horrified at the lack of basic grammar knowledge out there. To read commentary about a comma preceding a vocative just makes my heart glow with joy!
I adore grammar. (I’ve studied an awful lot of it, in French, Latin and English). It’s magic (a bit like HTML). Too many people have no respect for it.
I, too, found the lack of comma before “readers” distracting. I went back to that sentence a couple of times to make sure I am not missing something. I can see how it could be considered normal on Internet fora, but I expect to see proper punctuation when I read professional journalists. (As a non-native speaker and a perpetual learner of English, I know first-hand how difficult it is to acquire the written conventions of a language, so I am not saying this lightly.)
It was fun to read, but the list of fragrances was a bit predictable (with the exception of FM Portrait of a Lady). What is “sexy” as a scent is highly subjective. To me, Agent Provocateur is a rather dry, almost austere chypre despite its sexy reputation. AP Strip is, actually, much sultrier.
Good grief… hyperprescriptivists… But moving on…
Interesting article. [yes, that’s a fragment]
I’m surprised that the author’s own pick included JHaG Not a Perfume. I’m also now curious about that Coudray.Thanks for the link.
Nope, it aint’ prescriptivism
(I’m not sure the term applies well to punctuation, anyway.)
In addition to being highly subjective, sexiness is a very cultural construct. I wouldn’t have chosen Chanel 5, either, but it is viewed as “sexy” because of its cultural associations. This article made me wonder if someone’s researched how different cultures perceive sexiness in fragrance.
At the top of my list right now: Amouage Lyric Woman.
I have to disagree with the assertion that there are only two types of memorable perfumes. I think a perfume (or anything at all) can be memorable in many ways. There are some perfumes that are not at all seductive, but are supremely beautiful, and such perfumes are, IMHO, quite memorable. One might as well say that a painting or a musical composition is not memorable unless it is either erotic or repugnant. Furthermore, I differ on many of the choices in the list. I have never found no. 5 to be particularly sexy. POaL smelled plasticky and unpleasant to me. As for JHAG Not a Perfume having “enormous staying power”–it lasted perhaps 30 minutes on my skin, making it one of the most evanescent fragrances I have ever tested. Even 4711 sticks around longer than that. Still, it is refreshing to see an article about perfume written by someone whose knowledge of the subject extends further than the latest celebuscent or smellalike mainstream department store juice.
This is a nice column for those who are contemplating VD fragrance purchases. However, I find it very odd that she would even mention CDG Avignon and Kyoto., even if they were meant to be contrasts. I know she wasn’t recommending them as VD presents, but I would have thought she would have steered people away from light airy florals, LAP Chasse au Papillons, for example. I also would like to have seen her mention some more light and fun sexy scents, not the Nora Desmond pedantic romance roses that she did. I had SL Datura Noir on last night and my BF commented that we should go to Hawaii this year. (Yeah). Heck, even Calypso St. Barth Lea would be a fun, lighthearted sexy choice for VD.
I agree-CdG fragrances are not for the fainthearted, but that’s what I love about them. Well written article.
I’ve just that atricle, well apart from the last 3 paragraphs.
I was in Harvey Nichols on thursday where the new L’Agent by Agent Provocateur is currently exclusive. I gave it a spray and was horrified, it’s like it was purposely built to try and turn someone on (which btw I wasn’t) rather than wear as a perfume.
it just smelled like dirt, like actually burrying your face in the soil in your garden. I couldn’t understand it. but I guess if pheremones were strong enough for the human nose to detect, that’s what they’d smell like. after all they are just chemicals emitted by the human body, so probably don’t smell very nice. as mentioned in the article above, animalic scents are what turn us on.
and back to my point of L’Agent’s purpose, it only lasts just over half an hour so backs up the point that it’s just for those “intimate times” ie bed. I’ll give it another try when I go in Harvey Nichols again, I thought it was a dodgy bottle at first or gone off or something, I thought no way can this be right. I much rather perfer the original AP, you could actually wear that as a perfume.
I’m charmed by the comma discussion. I’ll bet Bela (and a few others) have read this:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/punctuation.html
Recommended for punctuation lovers, but not hyphen-lovers. He does not discuss the hyphen. Please advise.
I hadn’t; thanks for posting the link. Very interesting.