NOTHING PROVIDES MORE inspiration for coinage of terms than our five senses. We fashion fundamental words to describe the wide range of information that flows from without onto our body and brain.
For example, I am told that the sense of Touch relies on our Skin being subjected to the following notions: Pressure, Temperature, Pain (tissue damage), Itch and Vibration.
Sight, in turn, is the naked Human Eye’s response to Light Waves, and we thus have the spectrum of named colours lying between infrared and ultraviolet. We term them primarily as Red, Yellow and Blue, and we appreciate the secondary colours they give rise to as green, orange and purple.
Ears, meanwhile, respond to Vibrations, and this has qualities such as pitch or loudness, or some specific quality in it we often call timbre. Out of these, we have manufactured language and music.
Airborne chemical stimuli affect the Human Nose. Breaking smell stimuli down is quite a difficult task. One good try lists these as: fragrant, woody/resinous, fruity (non-citrus), chemical, minty/peppermint, sweet, popcorn, lemon, pungent and decayed.
