Welcome to the inaugural link post for Perambulations. I’m not very active on other social media, and my love language is sending links, so I thought I’d try posting a choice set of cyber delectations here on a quarterly basis. Without further ado… Cats are evolutionarily perfect
I've always found it strange how few words we have for smells and whether that's cultural or neurological. I'm pretty much completely incapable of describing a smell with anything other than comparing it to another smell. Imagine how strange it would be if we couldn't describe the way something looks as anything other than "that looks like a tree" or "that looks like a rock." And yet, for those of us who aren't perfumers, that's about the best we've got for a pretty important sense that can save your life if there's a fire or spoiled food. I found this to be an unsatisfactory explanation: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-vocabulary-of-smell/414618/
Links for Fall 2023
I've always found it strange how few words we have for smells and whether that's cultural or neurological. I'm pretty much completely incapable of describing a smell with anything other than comparing it to another smell. Imagine how strange it would be if we couldn't describe the way something looks as anything other than "that looks like a tree" or "that looks like a rock." And yet, for those of us who aren't perfumers, that's about the best we've got for a pretty important sense that can save your life if there's a fire or spoiled food. I found this to be an unsatisfactory explanation: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-vocabulary-of-smell/414618/