Long ago I noticed the insignificant fact that dozens of words beginning with ‘sn’ have something to do with the nose: sniff, snuffle, snore, snout, snarl, snaffle, snicker, sniffle, snot, snigger, snivel, snoot, snub, snuff, et, no doubt, cetera. It turns out this sort of thing has a name:

There is a subfield of cognitive linguistics that studies sound symbolism, where there is pattern in a language linking sound structure of a group of words to what is called an ‘embodied conceptual schema’ that characterizes a significant part of word meaning, though by no means all word meaning. To give you a feel for sound symbolism, consider words ending in –ip: drip, clip, snip, rip, dip, sip, whip. There is a pattern here: the meanings all involve a short path to a sudden stop.

Here is the linguist George Lakoff, showing us how the concept can be used to bring down Widdle Donnie Drumpf.

Posted by Jerome Doolittle at September 25, 2016 03:55 PM

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