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If I "savor" a wine, do I savor its sensations, or its chemistry?If you savor a wine it's because you have a tongue first, a brain second, and a language third. Where's the beauty? Taste and thought. In vino veritas, of course, but always in moderation. Yes, Keats is dead. And so is Shakespeare, and Lincoln, and Gandhi.Yes, and so are Marlowe, Polk, and Nehru. "Is there in truth no beauty?" is an ambiguous sentence. I leave it for you to contemplate over a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau. Oh, and lest you think I am angry:
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I answered it to the best of my abilities. If you don't like my answer, I'm sorry
You did answer it, and most admirably, to the best of your abilitiies, jheem --- at least, up to the final sentence:
"Thought comes before posting"
That was not characteristic of you, jheem. And not worthy of you either.
Can we not disagree with one another in intelligent discourse without taking it personally, or making it personal?
I must confess that I was going to respond to your rejoinder "Thought comes before posting" with this:
"And thought comes before criticism, as well."
But that kind of 'eye for an eye' innuendo is what has soured even the best of minds, yours notable amongst them, to the high potential of this Board.
If I have been too quick to take offence in the past, that is a failing I sincerely hope to rectify. I hope you will encourage me in the effort.
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"And thought should come before posting"
This is my personal mantra. I write much to post on AWADtalk, most of which I don't post, but cut and paste into a text file which I save and usually never view again.
That was not characteristic of you. And not worthy of you either.
But, you see, even I can only be driven so far, before, at some point, I, too, snap. I am not sorry I wrote it, just that I posted it.
Can we not put this kind of innuendo behind us?
It seems not, alas.
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re Can we not put this kind of innuendo behind us? It seems not, alas
That sounds like a vote for more of the same, jheem.
But should that vote carry, even with a majority, it won't carry with me.
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I think in this particular case the most beautiful word in the human language is "hush."
TEd
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To say that any particular word in any particular language is the most beautiful word in that language presupposes a standard of beauty and some definition of word. Is it the sound of the word? The look of the written word? If it's the concept behind the word it's not really the word per se that's beautiful and I would submit that this is the case with mother. If this is the case, then it doesn't really make sense to say that it's the word that's beautiful nor that it's particularly beautiful in that language as opposed to other languages. We also have the fact that beauty is a very subjective quality. With all these variables I can't see any reason to disagree with nuncle's statement.
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If it's the concept behind the word it's not really the word per se that's beautiful I would agree, Faldage. To a person dying of thirst in a desert, "water" is surely the most beautiful word in the english language. Yet some words are beautiful because they marry sound and concept, or sound and imagery. "Melody" is such a word. "Melody" is "melodious". "Fierce" is "frightening", "formidable" and "ferocious". Is "mother", beginning as it does with "m", more evocative of nurturing than "father" which begins with "f"? mmmm good! f ??? Perhaps we judge words, like people, by the company they keep. "m" hangs out in more beautiful company, overall, than "f".
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I submit that the most beautiful word is 'beautiful'.
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I submit that the most beautiful word is 'beautiful'.Such beauty lies in the mind of the beholder, musick. For myself, I would say "birth" or "laughter" or "sunset" because of memories which I associate with these particular words. Beautiful is what these things are, but they are not "beautiful" [at least "the most beautiful"] apart from my experience of them. It occurs to me that the words we choose as "the most beautiful" are a mirror into our very soul. Those who feel imprisoned will see more beauty in "liberty" than those who are free. Those who are overcome with stress will see more beauty in "tranquility" than those who are overcome with boredom. This is precisely the genius of the famous "Luscher Color Test". The primary color or colors a person chooses in preference to others is deeply revealing of that person's psychological state, even their state of health ... and these preferences will vary over time as these "states" vary in any given individual.
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