This is an interesting topic.
The first thing that came to my mind was an old Monty Python sketch with a group of old, retired British soldiers in their club discussing how "caribou" was a woody sort of word but "antelope" was a tinny sort of word. Pretty funny exchange, but true, if you think about it.
Taking it a bit further, wines, for example, can have a pleasant "oak" (woody) aspect but we all seem to avoid a metallic (tinny) taste.
A word can have palatability.
A small fraction of the US population reports feeling "grossed out" by the word "moist." It seems to be a mouth-feel reaction.
I think Tracy from Oklahoma is on to something: there are quite a few bad-feeling words and many people seem to try to improve these words by pronouncing them incorrectly. Furthermore, these words may also sound unpleasant or clumsy. My favorites are probably 'nuclear', 'February', and 'realtor'. Of course 'nuclear' is famously and frequently pronounced 'nucUlar'; February is usually pronounce 'Febuary' (no r); and 'realtor' is frequently pronounced 'reluhtor'. Now 'mEllifluous' is used to describe words that flow sweetly and we might call a word that didn't flow sweetly a 'mAllifluous' word. It strikes me that a good poet could employ Tracy's concept by using mallifluous words to create a pattern of tension and release the way musicians sometimes use transient discords to prepare us for a satisfying mellifluous resolution. Perhaps Tracy's concept could be extended to include words that just don't feel, or sound, good together.
Michael Parti said:
It strikes me that a good poet could employ Tracy's concept by using mallifluous words to create a pattern of tension and release the way musicians sometimes use transient discords to prepare us for a satisfying mellifluous resolution. Perhaps Tracy's concept could be extended to include words that just don't feel, or sound, good together.
Welcome Michael. I do believe what you're suggesting has been done. I think Poe used that device in The Bells.
And just for the record, my all-time favorite "palatable" word is illuminance. Rolls of the tongue like saliva.
Michael Parti said:
It strikes me that a good poet could employ Tracy's concept by using mallifluous words to create a pattern of tension and release the way musicians sometimes use transient discords to prepare us for a satisfying mellifluous resolution. Perhaps Tracy's concept could be extended to include words that just don't feel, or sound, good together.
I once wrote a line of a poem that used initial and final consonant clusters to force an awkward effect. It created what I thought of as a slow, plodding, laborious rhythm, because it was impossible to pronounce the words together without hesitating or stumbling:
" … Till drought-bleached stopped-clock noons baked green to gray."
Unfortunately, the total awkwardness of that line was the only mildly successful aspect of the poem.