Beautiful words

Hello.

This last week has been a long one. For once. We've both spent the last month or two starting our posts with something along the lines of "it's time to write a post again, where does the time go?" But his week lasted for ever.

Today I want to talk to you about words. Because words are pretty amazing.

I read years ago an article about how someone had made a poll to find what the most beautiful word in the Finnish language is. Or what people think is the most beautiful word. Though I don't think people can be wrong about this, really.

The word voted to be the most beautiful was aalto (wave).

For some reason I can't remember any more some days ago I started thinking about what makes a word beautiful. I figured it's two things.

1. The meaning of the word. I found that the word mother (also in the Finnish top-5 or something) was voted to be the most beautiful word in English. That is because when we say or think mother, we feel warm and fuzzy and safe. Or something. The point is, that we think words are beautiful, if we associate them with something we like, of enjoy, or something that just makes us feel good. Like mothers.
I think, that in Finnish aalto works this way, a little bit. Finland is referred to as the country of a thousand lakes, so we're familiar with waves. They're pretty much everywhere in our country. Not only that, but spending time near a water is probably mostly associated with vacation, and relaxing, and summer. It's warm for once, and you can go to the beach, or to a summer house that's away from everything, just take time to yourself, spend quality time with your family, forget about normal life and the stress that comes with it. That's the imagery waves bring to mind in Finland, so it is a word that makes us think about nice things.

2. The sound of a word when said aloud. What it feels like to say it. People generally like round letters. And by round I mean words that feel round. L and n and m a soft s, and vowels. You know, as a contrary to sharp letters like k and ch and the Finnish r (the English pronunciation is round, I think) and t, in a right context. Check is a much harder word than, well, wave, and nicer to say.
Aalto works here too. It is a word that feels nice to say. It feels good in your mouth.


When I googled about this, I found something weird about this. Well, not weird as such. A little confusing. It's one of those things that you would have never in a million years come to think of yourself, but when someone says it to you, your reaction is "oh... That's true. Wow."

Ok. Someone brilliant, or actually many people (including JRR Tolkien), has said that the most beautiful word in the English language is cellar door.

Yeah. Think about it. Say it out loud.
Say it again.

It's true. It is a very, very nice word (well, phrase, I guess?) to say out loud.

It's just that if you think about the meaning, it is a very, very weird word to win the title of the most beautiful word of a language.

The word that I think is at least one of the most beautiful ones, I think, fits in both these categories.

It is why.

I hope no explanation is needed.

I think this is enough for today. I'll hear from you on Friday.

~matu