smell and taste

[Scott DeLancey]

On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Steven Schaufele wrote:

> For me at least, there definitely is a difference between `sour' and
> `bitter'

For me too; I can't imagine how anyone could conflate them.  Lemon
juice is sour, unsweetened coffee is bitter.  (Grapefruit has both
flavors in it).

> the taste of spinach or of unsweetened chocolate; i don't know what sort
> of substance causes this gustatory reaction, but it's definitely

I've always assumed (but can't give any stronger basis for it than
that) that acids are sour and alkalis are bitter.

Scott DeLancey	
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403, USA

delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html