Beautiful Words
I just tried to read an essay in the New York Times that cited the words “cellar door” as the most beautiful phrase in the English Language. HUH? Normally I enjoy lists of “beautiful words” but this threw me. Cellar door doesn’t do anything for me, in sound or meaning. It actually makes me feel a little tense, since I automatically presume that something bad exists behind a cellar door, like a maniac or a dead animal.
I screwed around on google and found this list of “The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English.” Take a look! I was surprised by how many I disagree with. Usually lists of beautiful words are big on euphonious words like shimmer, iridescent, and lullaby, but this list is all over the place.
It includes “plethora” which I hate, and “inglenook,” which I think is the name of a cheap wine, but I’m not sure. I misread “fetching” as “felching,” which was a momentary shock that has ruined “fetching” for me, at least for tonight.
“Ineffable” is a great word, and so is “imbroglio.” I also like “pungent” and “woodwind” and “melancholy,” none of which made the top 100. On the other hand, it did include “penumbra” which is too reminiscent of “pudenda” for my comfort.
“Halcyon” is a lovely word that made the list, as one might expect. It would be beautiful even if it didn’t evoke a nice tranquilizer. I once told a friend that the drug Halcion made me think of people laying in the grass beside a sun-dappled lake. He replied, “They should have called it Seurat.” I nearly fell in love with him for that, but I was already in a relationship and he was a prick.
What words do you find beautiful? Feel free to list your own 100 if you love that many.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:37 am
Denouement, ratatouille, seraglio, Susquehanna? And a word I love, ‘aubergine’… Are these words English? I rather like:
jasmine
butterfly
cedar
oak
gold
equanimity
chrysoprase
paradise
jazz
mimosa
rose
– plus many others, including ‘curious’ of course.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:40 am
Lady Sister.
This will take a fucking while.
But here are a few:
Sparrow
Salacious
Blossom
Sugar Cube
Juice
Poppy
Flicker
Slaughter (if removed well from its meaning)
Glassy
Silver
Silky
Nocturne
Marmelade
Crush
Blackberry
July
The worst word in the world?
(not counting racist fuckhead words?):
Drizzle.
-XuXu
http://www.frenchshelter.blogspot.com
March 5th, 2010 at 3:45 am
My favourite words are mainly Welsh or French (I deserve to be called a prick for stating this!) but I am rather partial to inglenook which is a corner by a fireplace or chimney particularly when I’m sat in one with a log fire burning after a bracing walk.
I quite like the word astonishment too.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:52 am
Lots of words about illusion, authority, and nature it seems:
magistrate
perfunctory
coda
nomenclature
viscount
obsidian
messianic
oligarchy
lepidopterology
larceny
voluble
orbicular
traipse
crevice
metallurgy
apiary
rhododendron
nefarious
“Wonderful” is the only word in English that I really hate, mostly because of overuse and how simply ugly it sounds.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:25 am
Madame Pudenda, fetch us a felch!
March 5th, 2010 at 4:44 am
Cerulean
sable
tintinnabulation
metaphor
lucid
repugnant
discombobulated
stentorian
cosmos
dulcet
March 5th, 2010 at 5:11 am
Puchritudinous
cetacean
bounder (sounds better when it comes from Bertie Wooster, I admit)
March 5th, 2010 at 5:22 am
I like “chrysalis”
and I know it’s not english but my favorite word in the world has to be “pendeja”.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:32 am
amplify
bastion
cerulean
ebullient
empathy
ennui
ephemeral
inspire
foramen
gracious
gnome
meander
pejorative
perennial
philosophy
poignant
raven
umber
verbosity
viridian
visceral
voluminous
weary
wistful
I am not finished, but I have to go…
March 5th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Penultimate, squalor and peripatetic are three of my favorite words, but I’m not sure I could use them together in a sentence. Lackadaisical is my least favorite word because it lost me the spelling bee in 4th grade.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:21 am
I have an all-time favourite, though I don’t know if it’s been used in about a century- blackguard!
March 5th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Pungent and melancholy are great, Sister. XuXu, I too enjoy the word salacious. And Kate, magistrate is also a favorite of mine. A few that immediately come to mind:
Love:
Emphatic
Caveat
Demur
Comeuppance
Spurious
Affable
Concubine
Pestilence
Hate:
Colossal
Global (when imporperly used, which is all the time)
March 5th, 2010 at 8:26 am
quatrain
flog
draconian
perpetual
innate (I don’t know why I love this word so much, but I do)
veranda
flagellate
dodge (I love the mind-picture that comes with this word!)
postulate
perspicacious
calamity
eviscerate
HATE:
Human – I don’t know if it’s the word that I hate, or what everyone says when they discuss “humans.” HAAAAAATE.
Wow…I’m seeing a pattern in my words. I think that I need to go and self-analyze now.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Great post. I’m will you on cellar door – maybe I’ve watched too many scary movies.
My favourite word is discombobulate.
Others that spring to mind:
salacious
obstreperous
belligerent
lacivious
delicious
lovely
wonderful
halcyon
bizarre
incredible
March 5th, 2010 at 8:36 am
How could I forget: cul-de-sac! Such a delightful word for something so pedestrian.
If I could marry a word, it would probably be that one.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:38 am
I <3 the word 'Possum'. The animal, not so much.
I dislike the word 'but' though I say/write it more than I'd want to.
Plenty is also a good word…
March 5th, 2010 at 8:39 am
I saw an exhibition in Palais de Tokyo in Paris, literally, exactly two years ago, which was called ” cellar door”, inspired by that statement.
One room was like abandon city scape with hand made trees covered with gun-powder and a full moon hanging above. It was the most beautiful thing.
We planed to visit more shows that fashion week, but instead, we sat on the bench, in Paris rain, smiling.
http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fo3/low/programme/index.php?page=nav.inc.php&id_eve=1940&session=35
There are some videos on youtube, but they don’t do it justice.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Forgot to mention my favorite word
smrt – means “death” on Serbian. It’s so ugly and hard on tongue, just like death.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Packages. Particularly the meaning.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:21 am
sonorous
I have many more, but this is what has stuck with me at the moment.
But if we’re going into foreign/dead languages, I also rather like “lacryma christi” even though i’m not religious one bit.
Oh and an unpleasant, but powerful word: moist.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Hmmmm.. is a good one.. I use it a lot.
Rococo
cornucopia
gazebo
fellatio ..as in “This portrait was painted in 1656 by Fellatio..”
redundundent
licentious and lascivious
portabello
spigot
lunatic
There ought to be a Greek God called Herpes.
Nondescript is such a nondescript word.
Translated from the Danish the little indentation under your nose is called a “Snot Trough.”
My favorite surname shared by a Danish writer – Henrik Pontoppidan.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Door just dead ends all the rolling off the tongue interest of cellar. Cellulose has similar merits. So does annihilation, Pleistocene, abulia, velleity, hypotenuse, cloak, and mode.
My favorite English words have been my longtime internet handles: acrasia and ideoplastic.
When poverty leads to begging in the subway with my viola, our band of street musicians will be named Volgivagant.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Off the top of my head I’d add myriad, serpentine, panache, obstreperous, eviscerate, and azure.
My most hated word: bauble.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:43 am
love
fuck
grandiose
embellish
intoxicate
fantasy
lovely
amazing
awesome – i am so guilty of overusing this word
ecstatic
succumb
gravity
reason
We could do serious self analysis by looking at the words we fancy.
okay fancy that’s another one.
I better never live in England. I will turn into one of those annoying bitches with a fake british accent rather quickly.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
On January 23 I sent you my “word cloud” of these very words!
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1573918/100_most_beautiful_words
March 5th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
My favorite 51 words:
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1574966/51_words
March 5th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I love language, period. So I’d rather not choose my favorite words in a public forum; all the other words would feel hurt & left out. But I’m especially a big fan of Latin bi/trinomial nomenclature. How can you not love (and be a bit frightened by) Ursus arctos horribilis (grizzly bear) or Canis lupus?
March 5th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
I think to get the “cellar door” thing, you’d have to say it over and over in your head until it loses its meaning and you just hear the sounds. But that might just be me.
Was this a recent issue of the NYT? Because that’s a pretty old idea, actually. As soon as I read the first paragraph of your post I thought of Donnie Darko. Ah, well. Must have been a slow day at the presses.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Oh, and here:
philanderer
reconnaissance
polity
I hate, hate HATE the word “tits,” but the word “breasts” isn’t much prettier.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Ribald.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Sarah Palin.
(Hey, what did I say? Where’s everbody gone …?)
March 5th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I’m with Mark Twain (I think it was him) who said that the two most beautiful words in the English language were “summer afternoon” – I think that “cellar door” is evocative, but as you said, it could lead down two paths, whereas summer afternoons seem far less likely to contain hidden maniacs.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Great subject, Sister W – it’s why I love you.
Love:
incarnadine
bijou
russet
dogsbody
cascade
sylvan
unguent
suborn
organelle
planchette
axolotl
naiad
pique
feline
cornbread
Hate:
midget
udder
piss
plankton
stump
catamite
pout
March 5th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Cellar Door: As long as it is a wine cellar, and the door isn’t locked – what’s not to like?
and the one of my family crest: “schadenfreude”
I also like Gore Vidal – although I probably should have put that on your people post. I like the sound of it too. xx
March 5th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Many wonderful lists here – I need time to read and ponder, and maybe put together my own list. JJ, you made me laugh with “pendeja”. Pendejo is good too – as in “Sting – que pendejo tan grande!”. Ann, you’re right – “global” is misused all the time.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
xuxu- READ JIM MOORE’S POETRY! he’s obsessed with the word sparrow!!!
ineffable is one of my favorite words too. i have about 2 poems fixated on it (so ironic.)
i never got the cellar door thing either.
i have about 10 different lists for this question. I wont bother trying to compile them on a friday.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
tickets!
best English word ever
March 5th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
In the movie Donnie Darko the English teacher (Drew Barrymore) writes “Cellar Door” on the chalk board as the 2 most beautiful words.
Words I HATE the sound of:
Magician
Fork
Bruce (name, not i word but I hate it)
Masticate
Waft
Spore
Scathe
Visceral
March 5th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
I think Tolkien was right on the money when he said Cellar Door was the most beautiful phrase. Cellar door, cellardoor, celladore, selladore. It could be the name of one of the many beautiful worlds he created.
Also, over here (not sure about in the US) the “Cellar Door” is usually the part of the winery where you go and taste/buy wine. If that’s not beautiful, I don’t know what is.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Great lists everyone! I think when I restart my blog I’ll begin with a “love/hate” word list. A few that I like:
Liminal (Yes, it’s okay without the “sub” prefix)
Diaphanous (it’s the Greek in me)
Susurrus (How leaves talk)
Soliloquy (Love S and L sounds).
I used to like “topiary” but The Shinning ruined it for me.
Cosmos (Love Carl Sagan, and so many wonderful memories being lost in time, on a remote island, watching the heavens spinning above me in the wee hours of the night.)
ciao for now
March 6th, 2010 at 1:29 am
My favourite word is Halcyon. There is a beautiful brand of teeny tiny hard to source porcelain boxes from a shop in London called Halycyon Days. The are exquisite (another good word). I only own one but I love it.
My 2nd favourite word is stalwart, because it’s funny and I like a stalwart, who doesn’t?
My favourite nonsensical fashion-speak-word is Visionary. As in “That cropped gold party jacket is Visionary Karl”.
According to my taste the most gorgeous sentence would be “A visionary stalwart purchased an exquisite halcyon days box”.
March 6th, 2010 at 6:23 am
Since this whole discussion started off via two words, I’ll pitch in my two cents’ worth for “scurvy cur”, too.
Fuck, why don’t I like modern language?
March 6th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Doodad. I love that too.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:17 am
Feckless. I REALLY love that.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:42 am
Definitely love “halcyon” and “melancholy” too.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:30 am
I introduce my husband as my “Lover”. My favorite word ever!
March 6th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Though possibly the most beautiful words ever when used in conjunction, IMO, are “stone fox”.
March 6th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
becoming (adj.)
March 6th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
archipelago is my hands-down favourite.
March 7th, 2010 at 1:25 am
poof. Beautifully onomatopoeic, it is.
March 7th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Schadenfreude and heliotrope. =D
March 9th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
How wonderful to spend time considering your favourite words. Life is good.
This contemplation has made me realise I am a comfort slut. Two words which bring me joy through their sound and meaning are pyjamas and cinnamon
December 27th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Love the word: Oblong
Hate the word:Pork