"cellar door"

[Geoff Nathan]

And of course there's the terrible shaggy dog story about various Europeans comparing their word for 'butterfly', which I won't repeat.  For those who don't know it, the punchline is



[German speaker}: So vat's wrong mit 'Schmetterling'?

Har, har...

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 7:25:56 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: "cellar door"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "cellar door"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> IIRC, in the Mario Pei's The Story of English, _murmur_ was  chosen
> by
> Americans as the most beautiful word in English, whereas some other
> word was chosen by speakers in the UK. Or, perhaps, it was the other
> way around. IAC, Pei's argument was that there is no such thing as a
> "beautiful" word or a "beautiful" language, except in the perception
> of the individual speaker.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 5:48 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "cellar door"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > And Woody Allen in "Deconstructing Harry" said the most beautiful
> words in the English language were "it's benign."
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Charles Doyle [cdoyle at UGA.EDU]
> > Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 3:42 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: "cellar door"
> >
> > And while we're on the subject (sort of), does anyone know the
> history of (or the history of the attribution of) the
> not-infrequently-recounted anecdote about the wit who declared that
> the most beautiful word in the English language is "syphilis"? I've
> heard it credited to Samuel Johnson and perhaps one or two other
> "quote magnets."
> >
> > --Charlie
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> ���
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"��a strange complaint
> to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> �Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org