How Are Words Pretty Or Ugly?
If words were people, then "eloquent," "love" and "symphony" would get dates most Friday nights but "vomit," "moist" and "puke" would stay home alone, wondering what went wrong. How are words pretty or ugly? That's the question Robert E. Wolverton Sr., a Mississippi State University classics professor, recently asked in a survey of some 75 students in his classes. The poll is part of the foreign language faculty member's "semi-frequent" examination of how students at the land-grant university view widely used terms. Of the 148 different "beautiful" words submitted by students this year are several listed multiple times: eloquent (six), love (four) and symphony (four). Beautiful, lavender and tranquility each received three mentions. read more
Read the whole article on Scientific Blogging
More from Scientific Blogging
Related
- Familiar and newly learned words are processed by the same neural networks in the brainSat, 29 Aug 2009, 1:34:33 EDT
- Lower lexical recall in bilingual kids no cause for alarmWed, 16 Sep 2009, 13:27:02 EDT
- Brain processes written words as unique 'objects,' GUMC neuroscientists sayWed, 29 Apr 2009, 12:50:33 EDT
- Scientists watch as listener's brain predicts speaker's wordsThu, 11 Sep 2008, 14:22:46 EDT
- Baby talk: The roots of the early vocabulary in infants' learning from speechThu, 30 Oct 2008, 13:08:28 EDT