We’re Olfactory Failures, and Other News

Crepe de Chine perfume ad, 1937

The justice system is cruel. You can be sentenced to death; you can be sentenced to life without parole; you can be sentenced to read Malcolm Gladwell.
Speakers of English may be unusually ill-equipped to describe smells. Our language lacks, for instance, a word meaning “to have a bloody smell which attracts tigers.”
At the intersection of art and commerce, poets sell potato chips. Poets sell iPads. Poets sell jeans and family vacations.
“We will likely make great selfies—but not until we get rid of the stupid-sounding, juvenile, treacly name. It rankles and grates every time one reads, hears, or even thinks it. We can’t have a Rembrandt of selfies with a word like selfie.”
Live like your forebears. Adhering to Ben Franklin’s rigorous schedule allowed this young man to “pick out a pretty fly outfit,” among other efficiencies.