Posted by Jim on April 24, 2002
Are words for smell and taste scarce in english compared to words for other senses? If so, why? Any possibility that in the past "awful" or "rotten" were adequate descriptors of how things tasted and smelled, so these two senses were short-changed in the evolution of the language?
Do other languages command a broader pallette of words for taste and smell? Are wine reviewers forever restricted to simile or metaphor?