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Synesthetic metaphors for sensory experiences are the norm, even among sight and sound. Colors are usually described as "loud", "quiet", "cool", "warm", "hot",
by hodwik 11y ago
Synesthetic metaphors for sensory experiences are the norm, even among sight and sound.
Colors are usually described as "loud", "quiet", "cool", "warm", "hot", "soft".
This morning I read an album review that described the music as -- “radiant”, "textured", with a "shimmering glow", "a gilded set of songs", "seemingly to soar in a striking display of absolute iridescence".
That sort of language just helps us triangulate an aesthetic experience using the language of our other senses, it doesn't mean a sense is any less direct.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoBut smells are almost exclusively described in that way. There is no spectrum; there is no map like touch. That's the whole point of the OP, right?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hodwik 11y agoNo, not at all. Smell is the least synesthetically described sense. Generally with smell we call a smell for exactly what produces that smell: "oak-y", "fecal", "flowery", "smokey" and so on. That is profoundly less synesthetic than our descriptors for the other senses, which are almost always described in metaphor -- bright sounds, loud colors. The very idea we have less smell words is nonsense. We just have less abstract smell words. Consider if we used crayola color names to describe the colors, would that mean we had less color words because we're more specific with our language?