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.