June 14, 2006

Purrrty Names.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 7:32 pm

Suzette at Bob the Corgi, in her usual entertaining way, was discussing particularly nice sounding names. For some reason, the electrochemical basis for which I do not know, that reminded me of a college class a zillion years ago in which we learned that a bunch of well-known linguists got together and decided that the two English words that sounded the most beautiful when put together are “cellar door”. Say it a few times, trying not to think of what it means, and it does have a nice sound to it. I think so, anyway.

Still, I don’t know if “Cellar Door Jones” would work so well.

9 Comments »

  1. No, but Basketball Jones works pretty well.

    Comment by Ken Adams — June 14, 2006 @ 10:43 pm

  2. Damn… Ken beat me to it.

    Cellar Door Wilson might work. I think it needs two syllables to have the right ring.

    Heheh… thanks for potentially naming a future kid of mine…

    Comment by That 1 Guy — June 14, 2006 @ 10:51 pm

  3. I always thought that the general public should make more use of all the Madison Avenue brainpower that thinks up product names. It’s not just a name, but a name that confers a contrived image on the bearer. Why not name a child Chevelle, Crest or Verizon – especially if it makes people want to throw money your way?

    Comment by Suzette — June 15, 2006 @ 1:54 am

  4. “Cellar Door Dali”

    Comment by That 1 Guy — June 15, 2006 @ 9:07 am

  5. … cellar door… CELLAR door… cellar DOOR… cool.. it makes my tongue feel nice…

    Comment by Eric — June 15, 2006 @ 11:46 am

  6. “Cellar Door” is, I believe, originally an observation of J.R. R. Tolkien’s. It is mentioned in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of Tolkien. Tolkien made the point about “cellar door” being beautiful, and said that one of the languages he studied (I believe it was Welsh, though Tolkien also thought Finnish was very beautiful) had a lot of “cellar doors” in it — meaning a lot of common words that sounded beautiful.

    Been about 20 years since I last looked at Carpenter’s book, and I can’t give the exact quote because I don’t have a copy of it around anymore, but I think that’s where it originated.

    Tolkien was, of course, immensely influential among linguists, being a professor of language at Oxford and an editor of the O.E.D.

    Carpenter’s bio of him was quite good, as I remember.

    Comment by The Colossus — June 15, 2006 @ 1:47 pm

  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_door

    Wikipedia actually has an article on it, stangely enough. It’s from a 1955 Tolkien essay “English and Welsh”.

    Comment by The Colossus — June 15, 2006 @ 1:49 pm

  8. Almost every week I sort through the birth announcements of the local hospitals for the creative names bestowed upon the newborn in this area.

    Tolkien, Suzette and just about any other sane adult have NOTHING on the people I write about…

    Mostly Cajun

    Comment by mostly cajun — June 15, 2006 @ 9:37 pm

  9. I have problems with my “cellar door” blowing open in the wind when I eat Mexican food. Ain’t NOTHIN’ beautiful about THAT!

    Comment by Acidman — June 17, 2006 @ 5:14 pm

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