The semantics of taste
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Taste, a function of the tongue, can be extended to a faculty of the mind, especially in aesthetics. The four individual tastes are also used metaphorically in the language.
The metaphors of basic tastes
Of the four basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter), only sweet, sour, and bitter are used to express value judgement in other spheres than the purely gustatory.
The metaphors of basic tastes is a page dedicated to the metaphors which can be coupled to the basic tastes sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.
Of the four basic tastes only sweet, sour, and bitter are used to express value judgement in other spheres than the purely gustatory.
Examples include
- "Sweet revenge" or "the sweet smell of success"
- "The party ended on a sour note"
- "He stayed until the bitter end"
Saltiness is rarely used to express value judgement, although in the Dutch language there is the expression 'ongezouten mening', 'unsalted opinion,' meaning that the opinion is raw and honest. There is also het hartig gesprek, hartig being salty in Dutch and "zout in de wonden strooien", adding insult to injury.
Other words to describe taste (which are not derived from food/mouth experience) are kitsch, camp, sleazy, trashy.
See also
- Allmusic.com qualifiers
- The Lexical Field of Taste : A Semantic Study of Japanese Taste Terms () - A. E. Backhouse
- Bittersweet
- Semantics
- Taste
- Metaphor
