Thus in the opening paragraph of this book we encountered a large number of olfactory words. But they are all vague ; some applying to pleasant, some to unpleasant, odours. Many of them are very expressive, for disgust begets strong language. But although our olfactory vocabulary may be forceful, it is not discriminative. In other words, it is an emotional, not an intellectual, vocabulary,
These considerations will become more obvious as we deal with olfactory epithets in detail.
Thus smells may be faint or “strong,” but so may any other sensation. And to call a smell “sweet” leaves it but vague, while at the same time the epithet is borrowed from the vocabulary of taste, where its meaning is quite precise. “Pungent” is also a transposition, this time from touch, as it is a Latin word signifying “prickly.”
In addition to such terms as these we have a small number of words which we are in the habit of applying to certain classes of odours. “Musty” is one of these. This adjective certainly has the look of a pure English word about it, but, as it indicates a smell like that of mould, it is probably derived from the Latin mucidus, mouldy ; we cannot, therefore, claim it to be English any more than we can claim it to be definite. Perhaps the puff-balls of our autumn woods supply the best example of a musty smell.
“Mawkish,” however, is certainly English, as
