David Crystal wrote an article in English Today called "Phonaesthetically Speaking", comparing which words sound beautiful in English, quite apart from their meaning. He came up with ten features, and the more of them a word had, the more beautiful the word sounded. The features were:
3+ syllables
stress on the first syllable
uses m
uses l
uses s, n, r, k, t, or d
doesn't use other consonants
3 or more different manners of articulation
only short vowels
more front vowels than centre or back vowels
more low than middle or high vowels
Is there any chance of finding this article on the Web? Failing that, could you post some of the exmples he used? Phonaesthetics sounds fascinating (no pun intended), and I would love to learn more, especially as it seems to me to be a very subjective field. "Beauty is in the ear of the beholder."
