(no subject)
I AM SO BORED OF BEING SICK. I CAN GO NOWHERE RIGHT NOW.
Sights are easy to describe. You might not ever be able to repeat an experience in full, but at least you can describe what it looked like. As long as the person on the other end has the same equipment, or even once had, they'll have a fairly good idea. So you can talk about a tree... but then it's a long, slender birch tree with orangish peeling bark and brilliant yellow leaves that fall off in the breeze and spiral through the air. Oh, you don't know what a birch is? A birch is a kind of tree with loose, flimsy bark that is often white, and have straight trunks up to the crown, with grayish score-marks along their length; their branches fork quickly into slender twigs, and their leaves are shaped like the spades on a deck of cards.
All those words are visual in some sense.
Hearing is harder, but there are still plenty of words you can use. You can talk about a fast-paced song, a sound might be bright or mellow, the pitch might be low or high, it might be sweet or discordnant, quiet or loud.
Touch is a bit tricky, but that is largely due to the ambiguity of several of its key words, i.e. soft, which aside from its various emotional implications also can be a matter of "surface tension" or texture.
Smell is very difficult, but often seems to be overlooked. Ones that are familiar to the audience referred to that way, and if they aren't, I have never seen someone mourn long over their inability to communicate.
Taste is undeniably the hardest. Probably because it is also intimate, morseo than smell, and used to describe personalities so much it has become trite. Why is it that we cannot advance beyond sour, sweet, salty and bitter for our comparisons? Even "rich" and "savory" tend to end up inferences rather than actual tastes, and depending on your personal history, "herbal" might mean nasty or wonderful. Taste is also incredibly personal; while people like different kinds of music, the sound of flesh ripping or metal on slate both touch a nerve in people's skulls. Touch is incredibly universal, because of its link to pain, while sight remains fairly neutral. Meanwhile, I've seen people shrink in disgust from chocolate, and others who adore Swedish Bitters*. FOR GOD'S SAKE, PEOPLE PUT MILK IN THEIR EFFING COFFEE.
"There's no accounting for taste."
Well, then.
The problem is that people are constantly trying to market things to eat or drink. How many times have I heard "this tastes delicious". The HELL does "delicious" mean? I know what orange is, so if someone says "look at this beautiful orange dog collar", I know I'm probably not going to like it. But delicious... coffee with maple syrup is delicious. Salmon sashimi is delicious. WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S OVERCOOKED MEAT AND COOKED ONIONS, THAT'S NOT DELICIOUS!!
The main place I encounter this is with a. wine, and to a lesser extent microbrews and mixed beverages**, b. coffee, and c. chocolate. There are other places, but for example, when I read that Starbuck's "Sumatra" blend is "earthy" and "herbal", I feel slightly put off. WHEN I ACTUALLY TASTE THE DAMN COFFEE, THERE IS NO "HERBAL" OR "EARTHINESS" ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND.
Taste in music may be varied. Taste in paintings, or movies. But at least when I go buy a CD full of symphonic metal I can read not only what bands (which I may never have heard) that it sounds like, or irrelevant, flowery prose about it, but actual descriptions that make sense. And I don't take home a CD full of country music just because the cover looked pretty.
And no one ever says Nightwish is earthy, with floral overtones and a hint of oakiness.
* the most disgusting substance I know of
** no, I don't drink them. I'm too young, so all my samplings have abysmal variety. but I find it interesting to read their little infocards.
The frustrating part of all this is that I'm a mild synesthete. Specifically to this instance, I taste words. And often I want to describe tastes in terms of textures and colors and patterns and stuff, because THAT'S WHAT IT TASTES LIKE. I've heard some normal people have an argument over what cheese tastes like*, so, I must ask anyone reading- do YOU try to describe things with other senses?
* CHEESES I KNEW THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE
Sights are easy to describe. You might not ever be able to repeat an experience in full, but at least you can describe what it looked like. As long as the person on the other end has the same equipment, or even once had, they'll have a fairly good idea. So you can talk about a tree... but then it's a long, slender birch tree with orangish peeling bark and brilliant yellow leaves that fall off in the breeze and spiral through the air. Oh, you don't know what a birch is? A birch is a kind of tree with loose, flimsy bark that is often white, and have straight trunks up to the crown, with grayish score-marks along their length; their branches fork quickly into slender twigs, and their leaves are shaped like the spades on a deck of cards.
All those words are visual in some sense.
Hearing is harder, but there are still plenty of words you can use. You can talk about a fast-paced song, a sound might be bright or mellow, the pitch might be low or high, it might be sweet or discordnant, quiet or loud.
Touch is a bit tricky, but that is largely due to the ambiguity of several of its key words, i.e. soft, which aside from its various emotional implications also can be a matter of "surface tension" or texture.
Smell is very difficult, but often seems to be overlooked. Ones that are familiar to the audience referred to that way, and if they aren't, I have never seen someone mourn long over their inability to communicate.
Taste is undeniably the hardest. Probably because it is also intimate, morseo than smell, and used to describe personalities so much it has become trite. Why is it that we cannot advance beyond sour, sweet, salty and bitter for our comparisons? Even "rich" and "savory" tend to end up inferences rather than actual tastes, and depending on your personal history, "herbal" might mean nasty or wonderful. Taste is also incredibly personal; while people like different kinds of music, the sound of flesh ripping or metal on slate both touch a nerve in people's skulls. Touch is incredibly universal, because of its link to pain, while sight remains fairly neutral. Meanwhile, I've seen people shrink in disgust from chocolate, and others who adore Swedish Bitters*. FOR GOD'S SAKE, PEOPLE PUT MILK IN THEIR EFFING COFFEE.
"There's no accounting for taste."
Well, then.
The problem is that people are constantly trying to market things to eat or drink. How many times have I heard "this tastes delicious". The HELL does "delicious" mean? I know what orange is, so if someone says "look at this beautiful orange dog collar", I know I'm probably not going to like it. But delicious... coffee with maple syrup is delicious. Salmon sashimi is delicious. WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S OVERCOOKED MEAT AND COOKED ONIONS, THAT'S NOT DELICIOUS!!
The main place I encounter this is with a. wine, and to a lesser extent microbrews and mixed beverages**, b. coffee, and c. chocolate. There are other places, but for example, when I read that Starbuck's "Sumatra" blend is "earthy" and "herbal", I feel slightly put off. WHEN I ACTUALLY TASTE THE DAMN COFFEE, THERE IS NO "HERBAL" OR "EARTHINESS" ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND.
Taste in music may be varied. Taste in paintings, or movies. But at least when I go buy a CD full of symphonic metal I can read not only what bands (which I may never have heard) that it sounds like, or irrelevant, flowery prose about it, but actual descriptions that make sense. And I don't take home a CD full of country music just because the cover looked pretty.
And no one ever says Nightwish is earthy, with floral overtones and a hint of oakiness.
* the most disgusting substance I know of
** no, I don't drink them. I'm too young, so all my samplings have abysmal variety. but I find it interesting to read their little infocards.
The frustrating part of all this is that I'm a mild synesthete. Specifically to this instance, I taste words. And often I want to describe tastes in terms of textures and colors and patterns and stuff, because THAT'S WHAT IT TASTES LIKE. I've heard some normal people have an argument over what cheese tastes like*, so, I must ask anyone reading- do YOU try to describe things with other senses?
* CHEESES I KNEW THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE