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No, 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"
by hodwik 11y ago
No, 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?