I've just started reading Geoffrey Nunberg's The Way We Talk and came across this:
Some people try to give you what they think are beautiful-sounding words, like pearl, or willow, or autumn. But that's always a tricky business, because you're never sure how much your impression of the sound is colored by the meaning. Max Beerbohm once asked a friend, "Do you think that ermine is among the most beautiful-sounding words in the language?" "Oh, to be sure," his friend replied. And Beerbohm said, "Well, what about vermin? On the other hand, there are some absolutely gorgeous-sounding words that we tend to overlook because their meanings are repellent. Take melanoma. A beautiful word; you want it to be the name of a tropical wind instead of a tumor. You think of something out of a Carmen Miranda song: "Smell the tropical aroma / Carried on the melanoma." Actually a lot of medical words have that feeling — like diarrhea. What a waste of fine syllables that is.
Yup, some of us feel the same way about the word blog. Sounds perfectly okay for what it is.
Perhaps someone should concoct a recipe for a wonderful tropical drink and call it a melanoma. Maybe canteloupe juice, rum, some appropriate liqueur and a sprig of mint?
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle on June 9, 2003 12:26 PMAnd then there was the contestant on Groucho's "You Bet Your Life" whose father named her "Cellar Door" because Mencken thought it the most beautiful English phrase. I think Tolkien seconded it.
I've always found the word "flabbergasted" quite lovely.
Posted by: Ratso~~ on June 11, 2003 08:12 PMA good friend of mine was going to have a baby and I tried to convince her that "Ebola" would be a beautiful girl's name. It would, too. (Yes, she had a good sense of humor).
Off-topic (except names) but a friend of mine says that in Denmark no one is given the name "Soren" any more and that "Soren" has become a common noun, meaning an annoying, depressingly-serious person.
Posted by: zizka on June 14, 2003 02:13 PM