The whole thing is skewed by adding the definitions alongside. It alters how one sees/says.

I play a classroom game where we choose whether to take a magical word "selador" and run with it, or "write a poem about a cellar door". I've had some interesting results.

One of the poems my father encouraged me to read when I was quite small was "Romance" by W J Turner. I urge you to find it and read it aloud - none of this subvocalising malarkey, mind.

Mmmm - malarkey...

Porfirio Rubirosa. Porfirio is a modern form of the Byzantine and earlier name Porphyry, meaning purple, royalish.

There's a story still circulating about the larger 14-20 inch-long pepper mills found in some restaurants that were, and are still perhaps, called "Rubirosas". Since this is a family-orientated page, I cannot explain why this term came into use, but you can puzzle it out for yourself like an Anglo-Saxon riddle, or --- if you must --- send me a private message and I will reply with the humungous alleged truth. (But you must certify in some satisfactory way, such as swearing on a copy of The Analects in front of four adult witnesses, that you are of legal age in your political jurisdiction. Otherwise, I cannot impart the awesome rumored fact.)


PS: Oh well, the secret, such as it was (how could we know for sure) seems to be available to aficionados:

Thanks, Allen! We've definitely digressed. All of his appeal, of course, was in his name, royal purple red ruby. :)

Pretty hard to judge a word on sound alone, independently of its meaning. Thus death sounds scary, and maybe ugly by association, but selador might sound as sinister if it meant what death means.

I heard there was once a "most beautiful word in English" contest, and the winner was announced as swallow. Picture the trim curves, the graceful swooping, etc. Then someone asked, “Bird or gulp?”

Porfirio Rubirosa, could conceivably bring up associations such as perfidious and rubella: Perfidious Rubella, if you will.

Besides "cellar door", selador (but for -d-) sounds like French c'est la taure, "it's the heifer".

A word I love for the way it feels when I speak it, for its sound, the way it rolls out of my mouth...for all its meanings...verb, noun, past and present tense...is cure. Such a simple word with multiple meanings and I don't think I've ever used it writing.

Is that the South American volcanoes poem, Ann?

Yup. 'Tis.

I agree, but I'm also a huge fan of the pop/rock group, The Cure, so that connotation might make me biased.

Duncan

I think that you are just envious of P.R.'s .... reputation. Still, that's OK.