taste

[bingfu]

Dear Prof. David,
	thanks very much for your message!
	According to your description, it
sounds close to English 'puckery/astrigent',
doesn't it?

	Best
	Bingfu


On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, DAVID GIL wrote:

> Having just come back from dinner, I am reminded that
> Malay / Indonesian has a basic taste term "pahit"
> which has no equivalents in any other languages I am
> familiar with.  Dictionaries usually gloss it as
> "bitter", and that's as close as any dictionary can
> reasonably be expected to get -- but it's not simply
> bitter.
>
> Some examples of things that are "pahit" but not
> "bitter":
>
>    A cup of tea that has less than an inch of sugar
>    stirred into it
>
>    A glass of fruit juice with less than two inches
>    of sugar
>
>    Many fresh vegetables
>
> The connotation of the term is generally negative.
>
> David Gil
> Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
>