Euphonious words...

It’s not every day that I learn a new word. I really don’t know how I’ve managed for so long without knowing that ‘petrichor’ is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry land (and I'm not the only one). The word is actually a fairly recent coinage, first appearing in the pages of the scientific journal Nature in 1964. (The Oxford English Dictionary defines petrichor as “A pleasant, distinctive smell frequently accompanying the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather”). But I doubt if I’ll ever use it; ‘petrichor’ sounds like an unfortunate by-product of the petro-chemicals industry. 

Phonaesthetics is the study of words which sound intrinsically beautiful (even before we consider what the words actually mean). ‘Cellar door’ has been pronounced as particularly euphonious by writers such as Dorothy Parker, C S Lewis, Norman Mailer and J R R Tolkien (who may have coined the term ‘phonaesthetics’). If ‘cellar door’ looks too mundane to be mellifluous, it can be reconfigured as ‘celador’. My own favourite word? ‘Nubile’, of course.

St Mary's Church in Riccall, a village a few miles north of Asselby...