Cellar door (phrase): Difference between revisions

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Phonaesthetics#Cellar door

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+#REDIRECT [[Phonaesthetics#Cellar door]]
-:''For the [[John Vanderslice]] album, see [[Cellar Door (album)]].''
-'''Cellar door''' is a combination of words in the [[English language]] once characterized by [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] to have an especially beautiful sound.  In his [[1955]] essay "[[English and Welsh]]", commenting on his affection towards the [[Welsh language]], Tolkien wrote:
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-"Most English-speaking people...will admit that ''cellar door'' is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, ''sky'', and far more beautiful than ''beautiful''. Well then, in Welsh for me ''cellar doors'' are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant."
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-Tolkien's discourse is the most likely origin of this concept and the only documented one.  Nonetheless, this phrase has been subject to a legendary degree of misattribution.  In common circulation, this pronouncement is commonly attributed to "a famous linguist".  It has also been mistakenly attributed to [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[Dorothy Parker]], and [[Robert Frost]] although no such texts have surfaced.  The most detailed account alludes to a [[statistical survey|survey]], possibly conducted around the [[1940s]], probing the word in the English language generally thought to be the most beautiful.  Contributing to this survey, [[United States|American]] writer [[H. L. Mencken]] supposedly claimed that a [[China|Chinese]] student, who knew little or no English, especially liked the phrase ''cellar door'' &mdash; not for what it meant, but rather for how it sounded.  Some accounts describe the immigrant as [[Italy|Italian]] rather than Chinese.  Another account suggests that it is a mispronunciation of the [[French language|French]] words ''C'est la D'or'', which can be (extremely poorly) translated as "It is gold".
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-The phrase is also introduced in the [[2001]] [[film]] ''[[Donnie Darko]]'', in which the character Karen Pomeroy (played by [[Drew Barrymore]]), a [[literature]] teacher, states: "A famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words, that ''cellar door'' was the most beautiful." In the [[DVD]] commentary, director [[Richard Kelly (director)|Richard Kelly]] vaguely (and mistakenly) attributes this remark to Edgar Allan Poe.
-==Other==
-*The production company that created the television game show ''[[Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?]]'' is called "[[Celador]]", which is [[Spanish language|Spanish]] for "Watchman".
-*The cover of [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[On Writing]]'' is a photograph of a cellar door.
-*The phrase ''Cellar door'' is also used to refer to the point where [[tourism]] meets [[winemaking]] &mdash; a shop at a [[winery]] that allows visitors to taste and buy the [[wine]] made there or using grapes from that area.
-* [[Monty Python]]'s "[[Woody and Tinny Words]]" sketch finds humor in the pure sounds of English words and their inherent beauty or ugliness.
-* Also see [[Inherently funny word]]s.
-==External links==
-*[http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words10.html Beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) words, according to various references]
-*[http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/woodytin.htm Transcript of Monty Python "Woody and Tinny Words" sketch]
-[[Category:Donnie Darko]]
-[[Category:English phrases]]
-[[Category:Wine terms]]
-[[Category:J. R. R. Tolkien]]