Lumifer comments on LessWrong experience on Alcohol - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Elo 17 April 2015 01:19AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 17 April 2015 03:03:06PM 1 point [-]

We have a poor vocabulary for flavor distinctions for these things.

It's generally interesting how poor human language is at describing what we taste and smell. To go into any level of detail you have to resort to analogies ("...pronounced flavors of blackcurrant and plum with some burnt sugar aftertaste...").

Comment author: TylerJay 21 April 2015 05:00:50AM 2 points [-]

That's a really interesting point. Personally, I never even taste the things that people make analogies to when drinking wine. An ex-girlfriend of mine would always ask me things like "don't you taste blackberries? or "Isn't this buttery?" and would be really disappointed when I said no. I don't think it's because I have a bad sense of taste though. In fact, I'll often be able to tell if I've had a specific wine before (if it's the same vintage) because I recognize the taste signature, and I can sometimes say which other wines I've had that it tastes similar to. I just don't know how to describe the flavors.

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 April 2015 03:29:56PM 1 point [-]

It's generally interesting how poor human language is at describing what we taste and smell.

Doesn't seem to be universal for human languages Jahai for example has more words than English.