Something you almost certainly don't know about me is that I dedicate a certain period of my day, usually half-an-hour to an hour, to trawling through random Wikipedia pages.
Materially, I do this because I get bored easily and the time-wasting potential of Wikipedia is immeasurable. It makes me feel like I'm actually learning something during the aforementioned time-wasting, and the therapeutic qualities of wilful self-delusion should never be underestimated. Besides, who knows, perhaps one day the knowledge that sloths only pee once a week will somehow come to save my life. Unlikely, yes. But not impossible.
Anyway, during one of my recent Wikipedia trawls I stumbled (via ''spoons'', ''Bill Gates'', and ''Mesopotamia'') across the Wikipedia page entitled ''Cellar-door''. I can assure you I was as bemused as you probably are to discover that the word ''cellar-door'' actually has its own Wikipedia page, but I soon learnt the reason: cellar-door, believe it or not, is widely regarded by people who somehow specialise in such areas as being the most beautiful-sounding compound word in English. Indeed, such luminaries as J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Allen Poe and Dorothy Parker have all, separately and specifically, cited ''cellar-door'' as being among the most beautiful words in the English language.
To be fair, it is a lovely sounding word, particularly when pronounced phonetically as ''selador'', but I must say that upon repeating the word to myself for three straight minutes I remained unconvinced of cellar-door's supposed orgiastic musicality. Perhaps, I reasoned, cellar-door simply isn't my hot steaming cup of phonaesthetic tea. But, if that's the case, I do wonder what is?
Thusly, I did what any reasonable man with hours of spare time and a paralysing lack of imagination would do: I widened my trawling net, pun very much intended, and scoured dozens of internet forums for possible candidates to the title of Emile Donovan's Most Beautiful Sounding Word.
''Love'' unsurprisingly proved to be a popular choice among discussion-board contributors, though in all honesty I've never been particularly taken by it phonetically.
''Tranquil'', ''hush'', ''golden'', ''melody'', and ''gossamer'' also popped up on more than one occasion. Apparently, James Joyce's favourite word was ''cuspidor'', though in me, for some reason, that word conjures images of some kind of delicious bullfighter-inspired pastry.
Coincidentally, I found a useful source on my bookshelf entitled The Book of Lists, which contained a list specifically dedicated to this topic: the 10 most beautiful-sounding words in the English language.
Strangely, given the esteemed contributors, this list did not contain ''cellar-door'', but it did have some lovely contenders, including ''murmuring'', ''tranquil'', ''lullaby'', and ''hush''. As a side-note, that book also contained an antithetical list over the page, the 10 worst-sounding words in the English language, which included ''crunch'', ''cacophony'', ''flatulent'', and ''jazz'' as particularly nasty-sounding words.
William Espy compiled a list of his favourite-sounding words, which provided a few surprises, including ''meandering'', ''onomatopoeia'' and, bizarrely, ''gonorrhea''. One particularly insightful contributor stated that her favourite-sounding word was ''it's gonna be ok baby'', which ...no ... I shall restrain myself. It's no fun shooting fish in a barrel.
''Zest'', ''toast'', ''zeal'' and ''sleep'' were all mentioned in passing, while ''delicious'' was also suggested on more than one occasion. One thing I found curious about this process was how unwilling people seemed to be to view words solely based on their sound: the favourite words of many people were what you would describe as being ''positive'', while the least-favourite words, when they inevitably came up in conversation, were of a much more negative flavour.
''Fructify'', ''crepuscular'', ''aasvogel'', and my personal favourite ''brobdingnagian'', were all cited as examples of horrible-sounding words, though personally I truly despise the word ''wrong''.
Returning to a more positive spin, I learnt from a very helpful contributor that a survey on this topic had been conducted by the British Council in 2004, and found that ''mother'' was the most beautiful word in the English language, which made me really rather happy, but after two and a-half hours, with all of these options swirling (that's a nice word) around my head, nothing had really jumped out at me.
I was no closer to finding my own Most Beautiful Word than I was at the commencement of my journey. So, being the hardcore gonzo journalist that I am, I decided to start up my own forum on Yahoo.com, and in characteristically democratic fashion allow the internet to choose my most beautiful word for me.
I explained my situation, allowed people to poll for three days, and I absolutely refused to look at the results of the poll until the bitter end. Three nailbiting days later, I clicked on the page, scrolled down, and was presented with The Internet's Decision.
''Sex''.
I hope that says more about the internet than it does about me.
- Emile Donovan is a Dunedin student.
