Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The end of the article says:

>> "The fact that there are no specific terms to describe odors supports the idea of a defective association between odor and language. Odors take the name of the objects that have these odors."

This idea is wrong. Odors take the name of the objects that have these odors ... IN ENGLISH. Other languages have rich vocabularies for odor categories. Actually, even English has a few specific terms that describe odors, such as 'musty', so the quoted "fact" is also wrong.

Here is one of the first academic studies to document this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00100... and the author has other papers which shows the same facts in other languages.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: