Describing a smell
Since reading the chapter on smell at the beginning of the week, I've kept thinking back to one of Ackerman's points: we don't have a language for smell. Not nearly as much as we do for our other senses.
If I were to ask you to describe your bedroom for example, you would probably start by describing the layout of it, where your bed is, your desk, any posters on the wall. If I asked you about your favorite song and to describe how it sounds, you might start singing or humming it so that I can experience the sound for myself. So if I were to ask you to describe the smell of your parent's house, how would you describe it? For myself, home doesn't have a specific smell, home smells like home. And yet, I go to someone else's home and it has a very distinctive smell.
There was a recent study done by the University of British Columbia in which woman were given clothes to smell that either hadn't been worn, been worn by a stranger, or were worn by their romantic partner. It was found that woman who smelled the clothes their romantic partner had worn showed signs of lower stress, while those who smelled a stranger's clothes had higher levels of stress. This is something I feel that I can relate to, the smell of my girlfriend is calming and pleasing. But still, I couldn't put into words what that smell is for someone else, it's just her smell.
So i've been trying something new lately. I've been asking friends about their smells, what does their room, or their favorite restaurant or food smell like. And further, I've been trying to pay more attention to the things that I smell, especially the significant ones. I've been trying to give those smells words, emotional words (how they make me feel), and descriptive ones (what else do they smell like). It's been a challenge but an interesting experiment.
If I were to ask you to describe your bedroom for example, you would probably start by describing the layout of it, where your bed is, your desk, any posters on the wall. If I asked you about your favorite song and to describe how it sounds, you might start singing or humming it so that I can experience the sound for myself. So if I were to ask you to describe the smell of your parent's house, how would you describe it? For myself, home doesn't have a specific smell, home smells like home. And yet, I go to someone else's home and it has a very distinctive smell.
There was a recent study done by the University of British Columbia in which woman were given clothes to smell that either hadn't been worn, been worn by a stranger, or were worn by their romantic partner. It was found that woman who smelled the clothes their romantic partner had worn showed signs of lower stress, while those who smelled a stranger's clothes had higher levels of stress. This is something I feel that I can relate to, the smell of my girlfriend is calming and pleasing. But still, I couldn't put into words what that smell is for someone else, it's just her smell.
So i've been trying something new lately. I've been asking friends about their smells, what does their room, or their favorite restaurant or food smell like. And further, I've been trying to pay more attention to the things that I smell, especially the significant ones. I've been trying to give those smells words, emotional words (how they make me feel), and descriptive ones (what else do they smell like). It's been a challenge but an interesting experiment.
Thought-provoking. What kind of answers have you been getting when you've asked your friends about their smells?
ReplyDeleteIt's been about what I've expected, "home smells like home" and "my car doesn't really have a smell, or I don't smell it."
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