guttural as in gut

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 8:30 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In Rolling Stone, Feb. 21, 2008, p. 62, col.4; in article "The Last Record
> Man" (begins on p. 58) by Rich Cohen, about Clive Davis, who has been
> producing records for 40 years. Quoting Cohen, then commenting on the quote:
>
> "I was totally unprepared for the Haight-Ashbury population [at the Monterey
> Pop Festival]. ... Joplin was mesmerizing, like a white tornado. I had never
> seen anything like that, and so literally the cliche of feeling tingles go
> up and down your spine, and looking at the people, I said, 'I have to do
> it.'"
>    ... In other words, Clive's epiphany wasn't chemical -- it was guttural:
> He saw the play in Janis Joplin as he saw the play in Goddard Lieberson.

I discussed "guttural" = 'gut' (as in "guttural reaction/instinct"),
alongside "gutteral" = 'gutter' (as in "guttural politics"), in this
Language Log post:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002628.html


--Ben Zimmer

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