Contact: Maridith Geuder
Mississippi State classics professor Robert E. Wolverton recently asked his students to turn their sights from the ancient to the thoroughly modern.
After having spent the spring semester studying Latin and Greek, he asked them to re-evaluate their own language by selecting the English language's most beautiful and ugliest words. Wolverton, who has taught the courses since 1977, periodically makes the assignment to help his students gauge how perceptions of language evolve.
Nearly 70 students, many of whom had studied together for the past four years, submitted a total of 431 "beautiful" words and 450 "uglies." Wolverton said the selections "reflect both the influence of their classical studies and the pervasiveness of contemporary culture on language."
For instance:
--The "beautiful" list includes a number of edibles, among them ambrosia, a word from ancient mythology, and marinara, which appears to have only gained widespread usage since World War II. The "ugly" of this category include guacamole and tofu.
--A surprisingly large number of "beautiful" words have spiritual overtones, like angelic, love, honor, peace, faith, and glory.
--In the category of colors, blue is the most often cited "beautiful," while brown, black and orange lead those deemed unattractive.
--Kittens, butterflies, dolphins and swans have positive overtones, but hyenas, hogs, crows, and rats don't. MSU students also put guts, hate, lard, bile, and maggot on the top of their less-than-attractive word list.
"Love and peace, which are two of the most frequently mentioned, might well be linked with religion in the students' minds," Wolverton said. He also observed that an overwhelming number of words deemed "ugly" have only one syllable.
Wolverton said his little exercise helps students think about the words they use every day. "As Mark Twain noted," he added, "the difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."