October 12, 2001
What's the Good Word?
Eucalyptus exemplifies the mellifluous, as do salamander, romance, melodious, Chevrolet, and swizzle.
Others bonk the ear like the nubby grunt of a goat: chunk, cheese, hack, nougat, spit, Spam, frankfurter, and phagocytosis.
Or so says Robert E. Wolverton, a classics professor at Mississippi State University who has compiled lists of 431 of the prettiest words and 450 of the ugliest words in the English language.
The picks were made by 70 students in his Latin classes,
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