4 ms·
> sweet/salt/sour/bitter/umami Better than 'umami' is the native English word: savoury. I really don't know why folks feel the need to reach for a foreign wor
by wtbob 11y ago
> sweet/salt/sour/bitter/umami
Better than 'umami' is the native English word: savoury. I really don't know why folks feel the need to reach for a foreign word when we already have a sufficient one, other than wanted to sound fancy.
It's like 'cilantro' instead of coriander, or 'arugula' instead of rocket.
- jerf 11y agoSavory metaphorically had its chance, but whiffed it due to decades of being left out of lists of all taste buds produced by people in the west that listed sweet/sour/bitter/salty. This is the same set of lists that also showed the now-discredited "zones" of where each taste bud lives. Savory also means more than just "the flavor detected by the taste buds in question". For all I know "umami" means more things in Japanese too, but in English the new foreign import word had a chance to get nailed to the exact right concept with no previous baggage, so it won out in this narrow usage. Note it gets used nowhere else, while savory continues to lead the rich, complicated life of a "full" English word.
- jessaustin 11y agoPerhaps GP wouldn't object if it were spelled "oomaumy"? We could even imagine a proper fake Old Norse etymology for that.