Nothing added since January 18' 2012 ? I am late to the party but always got the message from "antediluvian"

It's geting to be quite a while since I heard your conversation about beautiful sounding words, but this may still amuse you if you haven't heard it.
Max Beerbohm and a friend were having exactly that discussion when Max asked, "Don't you think 'ermine' is a beautiful sounding word?" "Certainly," said his friend. So Max said, "Well, then, what about 'vermin?'
Al Kramer

Chlamydia is quite beautiful when you don't know what it means. It sounds like a girl's name.

propitious-not a euphonous choice,per se,but, it reminds me of monday night football,howard cosell,dandy don meredith,and perhaps somewhat easier times.

When James Lipton asked Meryl Streep, she replied "coconut milk".

Seraphic

Actually, I think "melodious" itself sounds beautiful. It lives up to its own meaning! And "seersucker," apart from the sounds of the word itself, sounds like a sucker who consults a seer. I kind of like the sound of the word "laundry," myself.

As for place names, Ernst Toch wrote a whole "Geographical Fugue," starting with "Trinidad! And the big Mississippi and the town Honolulu and the lake Titicaca." The whole English text is available at http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Geographical_Fugue.

Spanish is considered by many to lie between Italian and Portuguese in both complexity and in evolutionary distance from Latin; so it seemed a glaring oversight not to even mention it. The only reason I could think of is the lower class associations in this country.
I myself am biased, though; I personally find immense beauty in the rationality of Spanish pronunciation rules, as contrasted with my native English. It's the only other language I speak, so I can't compare it with the others. But not even thinking of it at all just seemed weird--especially since it's the second most prominent language in our own country.

@tom from li- i disagree with missy,but, now you, are taking in to a very foolish place in the other direction. why, do YOU, bring in racism? cultural differences don't just equate to race. intersting,that you would infer that,as a given. that's just intellectual flatlining,sir.

To Missy? Really, you're gonna go down the racism path?

@ missy from austin- i speak spanish as a second language. spanish is quite ubiquitous,in many parts of the u.s., so it just may not be as interesting to people. and btw,at the end of the day,no one is obligated to like spanish, just because they like portuguese,and italian. so, even if it is an unconcious bias,who are we or anyone else, to police anothers subconcious.

Wait a minute: You agree Italian and Portuguese are beautiful but you don't mention Spanish? I can't help but conclude there's a subconscious class bias in that view.

I heard Leonard comment on Marie Antoinette's famous misquote in this segment: Let them eat cake. It is more like let them eat brioche which is really not the same as cake. Here's the french: "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"

Apparently, historians are not sure that she said this all.

I thought this is point that Patricia T. O'Connor would appreciate.

Cheers

It's more fun than beautiful but I love the word "rockery". It sounds like what it is.

O'Conner liked "shampoo," which has an Indian derivation. Other nice Sanskrit-derived words are:

Bungalow

Cushy

Jodhpurs

Juggernaut

Jungle

Loot

Pyjamas

Thug

I just heard you mention the word "spatula." It reminded me of my freshman high school English teacher back in Dayton, Ohio. As a means of getting us to expand our vocabularies, he would occasionally play a game of Stump the Teacher. We would pick out words from the dictionary and he would provide the definition. I came across "spatula" in the dictionary which looked completely foreign to me; I must never have seen the word in print before. I pronounced it as "spah-TOO-lah" with the accent on the second syllable. I didn't realize that the word my mom -- who grew up in Queens Village -- pronounced as "spatuler" was actually "spatula." Mom didn't really have much of a Queens accent, but it certainly surfaced on that word. I shouldn't have been surprised. My grandparents, her parents, who died when I was only five, used to say "er-ster" for "oyster" and were forever asking me and my siblings if we had to go to the "ter-let." I always thought they were saying "turtle."

I love "diaphanous" for the way it sounds and for its meaning. The first time I saw this beautiful, pale pink iris with such delicate petals in my neighbor's yard, the first word that jumped into my mind was diaphanous. It is a lovely, lovely shade of pink. Other things that brought this word to mind was a sheer fabric I saw once on a dress and the dappled shade under a amelanchier tree.

Whenever I listen to this segment with people just naming words they like it reminds me of college and sitting around getting high and the utterly useless conversations which would result.

Tapioca.

Here's a funny one: Zenzizenzizenzic. An obsolete form of mathematical notation representing the eighth power of a number

Pang it's so descriptive

Crystal / Crystalline

Please give proper pronunciation of “jejune”. It’s not from the French.

PREUSE - a nice word to say, but perhaps the most misused word in the English language!

synopsis

Often: I do pronounce the T
And when used as Oftentimes, isn't the T pronounced?

mellifluous

To Aaron of Wall Street/Carroll Gardens: with all due respect, and without sounding like a snoot, the melody of the "Alphabet Song" was written by Mozart, no? I think it's just been overdone.

Karate

Annie Dillard in her first book, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, says that "Sycamore" is the most beautiful word in the language

I think cessation is one of the most beautiful words.

Anemone

Ms. O'Connor just dropped one from her lips (and Lips is a sweet word) and that is "ABUTTING CONSONANTS."

It feels nice in the mouth, and also makes me think of words dancing in a sexy way.

How about words that LOOK beautiful. I like ones that contain an X, like aviatrix.

Beautiful word: aubade, the song of lovers parting at dawn. The most famous one is in Romeo and Juliet, where the lovers dispute whether the are hearing the nightengale or the lark. Love the sound, love the meaning, most of all, love that the language has a word for this.

I met a young Polish woman who was just in love with the English language. She had studied it for a few years and spoke it well but I think it still had a newness and freshness and she just beamed when she spoke it. One day apropo of nothing she looked at me and said "you know what my favorite word is in English? Inconspicuous." And she said it in a melodic way. It is a good one.
Another aside on her exploration of English. She said she was walking down the street and tow men were having a fight. She said "He was beating him down". I said actually the expression is "He was beating him up". Her response- "That's stupid". Then I explained it takes a lot more time to beat somebody down. Her response-"What a language".

Anemone

"APRIORIC" and "EFFERVESCENSE" - because they sound mouthful,
Also,
aprioric - being before any knowledge - it just appeals to me as the beggining of the universe - and it sounds like a butterfly batting its wings

effervescence - I can just hear the bubbling of whatever liquid going on (I used to listen to effervescense sounds of selter in a glass when I was a little girl, and it always threw me into another microscopic world of dreams and discovery)

My favorite word is marsupial. But ubiquitous is good too. (Spelling doesn't count does it?)

I love the words windowsill and pudding.

Raunchy

Favorite word to say—specificity. So many awesome, angular syllables.

I have to respectfully disagree with Ms. O'Connor. Although palimpsest doesn't necessarily sound beautiful, it is visually stunning. I guess, to be clear, what she is looking for are words that are aurally beautiful.

My favorite - that both looks and sounds wonderful -- is maudlin.

mike huckabee - a four-year-old said he was going to vote for him last election

Equation = problem
How does it fit into the problem?

My favorite German word which I find beautiful is "Lebensmittelgeschäft" which means or used to mean,when I studied German many moons ago, grocery store.

the word, ICHOR.. pronounced IKORE....derived from the Greek, meaning
the "stuff" that flows through the veins of the gods.....so poetic

BENIGN

When I was a girl I named my doll Paprika because I liked the sound of the word.

Meadow

Actually, my daughter just informed me that BEVERLY CLEARY'S character, Ramona, in Ramona & Beezus, liked the word CHEVROLET and named her doll that because she loved the sound of it so much (to the chagrin of her older sister Beezus.)

My father-in-law loved the words "random flooring" and thought it was a great name for a grandchild

perspicacious

I much prefer the British word Courgette as opposed to our ugly Zucchini.

Hi once again...
I should have clarified a bit my previous choice of words in my last comment -- ethics and morals... I think these two words exemplify the possibility of beauty as derived from the MEANING of the word, as opposed to the sound or other qualities which offer appeal upon hearing. I think these two words have a deep resonance with people, touching on something that evokes a beautiful life or a beautiful outlook, and generating varied emotional and intellectual effects. And so I'm curious -- what do these two words evoke for you?
Thanks again.

Stentorian

A few I love...

Rapture

Understandably

quintessence

I have always loved the word "euphoria," both for its sound and its meaning. In fact, I almost gave my daughter (Maude -- another word I love for its sound and meaning) Euphoria as a middle name. I also love the word "celadon."

Curious why Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious has not come up yet. :-)

Leonard,

I was hoping your guest could shed some light on an issue that I've heard many New Yorkers encounter when engaging with people that were raised elsewhere. When speaking about a queue or line, I've noticed most New Yorkers say they stand "on line" and others generally say they stand "in line." This issue has definitely become more contentious since the advent of the internet. In fact, Leonard, I've heard that you say "on line" like most people I was raised around. Patricia, can you offer us any insight on this?

mercurial

Q-tip

Verdant - the sound and the immediate picture that comes to mind. What a wonderful laugh Patricia has!

arroyo !

My son's middle school English teacher has taught him not to use more than one coordinating conjunction in a sentence. I find that it is common usage to say "and, yet..." or "but, yet...". Is the latter incorrect or simply redundant?

Quixotic! I love that the meaning aligns with the ambition of using a 'q' and and 'x' in the same word.

the name 'Miranda'[

aubergine

susurrus

gallimaufry

Love you show! Long time listener, first time emailer...

My favorite word is CHUNKY. I think this dates back from working at
Starbucks where we stocked Chunky Pretzels, which were hard pretzel
covered in chocolate and dipped in delicious things.

Pet peeve: Even some editors these days let "myriad of" slip.

pronounced "whist-eer-ia" (sounds very different to me)

Cellar Door is also from the film Donnie Darko. Drew Barrymore said it was the most beautiful word in the English language.

schadenfreude

Favorite Word: chambray

Portuguese Brazilian strong ( shsh ) in accent is the Rio De Janeiro affectation.

my favorite word:

B E N I G N

onomatopoeia

paradigm !

Veronese Italians attending the University of Bologna insisted that "simpatico" meant more than agreeable. It indicated that there was a real understanding or being on the same wave length. In fact the expression was not truly translatable into English

Re Chevrolet - Ramona Quimby, in the books by Beverly Cleary, loves the sound of the word so much that she calls her doll Chevrolet, and of course gets laughed at by her older sister Beezus

Following up in the beauty of "sympatico", might it be that often what we find beautiful has its roots in latin and romance languages? Even visually, Italian looks beautiful. The alphabet was born out of the sounds. Languages that adopted the roman alphabet often look like all angles and sharp edges--"alpha-crashes".

Fructose

Aqua

"Exquisite" ... IS.

effervscence

Chifforobe. Spoken with a Southern accent, always.

I love the german word for church: kirche

Somebody once said that the two most beautiful words in English are "cellar door."

Always liked Poe's "tintinabulation" A perfect word.

A question: Could you ask Patricia for her perspective on pronunciation? I love her and her work but her, uh, accent definitely puts a twist on her readings of some beautiful words.
A word whose sound seems absolutely musical to me is "Flatulent," and when delicately pronounced, really comes across as delicate and light and lovely. As a word, I mean. I can see a more definition-appropriate pronunciation might be "Ffflatchyuhlint!" with perhaps a Damon Runyon-character earthiness.
Comment from the esteemed Ms O'Connor?

I'm going down the automotive route......Skylark flows nicely from the tongue and down the highway. And powerglide, which was an early name for a GM automatic transmission. I think....

At a convocation of Patent Lawyers at the Waldorf, known for its hospitality suites, the featured speaker said the most beautiful words were: "Open bar".

I remember hearing, as a kid (which was many years ago), that the most "beautiful" word in the English language, based only on sound, was/is "cellophane."

I also love serendipity.

Two words: "whisper" and "whippoorwill"

"Umami" is a Japanese word that, according to the wine-tasting book I am reading, has entered our lexicon to mean the fifth taste (aside from salty, sweet, bitter and sour). They say it translates to "good-flavored," "good-tasting" or "savory," but doesn't it just sound like "yummy"?!
Mmmm!

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain.

whisper

juxtapose - in both meaning and sound

Whim

Syzygy

Rhythm

How about "calliphonic" for a beautiful-sounding word?

Ironically, I have always liked the word "negative." This word peters back and forth between the front and back of the mouth, making it enjoyable to say. It's especially fun if you extend out the initial "n" before releasing the rest of the word. "nnnnnnnnegative" :)

I love FLORA and FAUNA

I have always loved the word "halcyon."

The German for waxwing is seidenschwanz. (I know this because my great-great grandmother was a Seidenschwanz from Saxony. It translates directly as "silk tail." Which makes me wonder about my great-great grandmother...)

Wisteria - one of my favorite words

I love the word "auberge," though I don't have much occasion to use it.

A favorite word of mine is serendipity.

Criminy!

She's wrong right off the bat this time, with prepared material, no less. Her definition of "palimpsest" is a highly specific and restrictive sense.

It doesn't mean writing transverse to original writing. The primary sense is "writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased." It's used metaphorically in the sense of successive layers in culture or architecture.

My favorite has always been somnolence.

Plantagenet -- not sure exactly how it sounds in the french though...

I love the word "lustration," not in the government sense as it is often used, but in the sense of cleansing by ritual purification, as is often done in religious ceremonies, such as in the Jain and Hindu religions.

don't you find placenta a strangely beautiful word?

Hello--

Haven't you mistaken “palimpsest” for “boustrophedon”?

--mgduke

Leonard, why is Pat's time being cut? She was always heard at 1:20. Today her feature began at l:32. Last month's was also cut short.

For some reason the section of the alphabet "LMNOP" came immediately to mind. Of course this is the most fun string of letters to say when reciting the alphabet (ignoring the saccherine melody of the alphabet song). In any case, I'll add "onomatopoeia" to the list, since it resonates with my childish appreciation for LMNOP.

How about dulcet or dulcimer? Especially dulcimer.

Any word which can be easily sung/crooned, including "beautiful"--which is why operas are easiest on the ears in Italian, and worst in German and English

Patricia,
Re beatiful words: When I was in the US Navy in 1959, there was a young man in boot camp with me who told me that his father, a linguist, told him that the two words 'cellar door' were the most euphonious sound to the human ear. Have you ever heard this? Personally, I likethe word 'sepulveda'.

Your fan, Ashton Spann

I have always loved the word "Waxwing." The sound of the soft vowel with the x in the first heavy syllable followed by the light "wing" in the second is beautiful to say and to hear, perfect for a songbird.
I also have a question about word usage. When should I use ensure, and when should I use assure? For example, which of the following phrases is correct? "To ensure the safety of all runners..." or "To assure the safety of all runners..." Thank you.

Hi Patricia
Recently, I have been wondering about "ethics" and "morals", and how many people seem to use these terms interchangeably, when they would clearly have come about to serve different contexts. I am wondering what distinction you would make between the two.
Thanks much!

Hemoglobin!

From the liner notes of one of my favorite albums, Good Humor by Saint Etienne:

"I remember once reading that the most beautiful words in the English language are chime, lullaby and melody, and this sounds true to me - both for the sound of the words, and the images they conjure."
~Douglas Coupland 1998