Why is cellar door a beautiful word

Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 9 months ago. Active 2 months ago. Viewed 20k times. Improve this question. Decapitated Soul 16k 10 10 gold badges 68 68 silver badges bronze badges. Marco Ceppi Marco Ceppi 2 2 gold badges 4 4 silver badges 12 12 bronze badges.

It has something to do with the how the sound activates neural pathways in your brain, but I couldn't begin to explain, and I'd guess it's not true for everyone. There is—we shouldn't be surprised—an entire Wikipedia article: Cellar door. I'll leave it for someone else to answer, if there really is an answer. Scott Fitzgerald's whip, snap, bumpkin, dark, more, wine, ineluctable, pale, Garbo, clandestine, and Wilfred Funk's dawn, hush, lullaby, murmuring, tranquil, mist, luminous, chimes, golden, melody.

I don't find it pleasing either. As to why some do? Well, there's always Rule "If it exists, there is porn of it. Marco did you ask the people who mentioned it why they think it's beautiful? I have to post this! Would it be based on the meaning of the word? How it sounds? But the compound word that some believe to be the most inherently beautiful will likely come as a colossal surprise.

In terms of phonaesthetics, cellar door is often held up as an example of the most euphonic sound combination.

Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings , is credited as one of the first to make this claim. View all posts by Jim Borden. Uh you missed the point. Gonorrhea is a beautiful sounding word too but the meaning is hideous. Like Like. Think of it as one word. Almost sounds like a European word and a Tolkien character. Just remove the meaning and feel the world as it comes out of your mouth. You are commenting using your WordPress.

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That's why there's a literary tradition of describing "cellar door" as the most beautiful phrase in the English language: The claim that cellar door is beautiful to the ear — in opposition to its prosaic meaning — has been made by and attributed to a wide variety of writers over the years. What do you think is the most beautiful phrase in English?

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