Cellar Door

[piosenniel]

Thought you might like to see this:

The basic pleasure in the phonetic elements of a language and in the style of their patterns, and then in a higher dimension, pleasure in the association of these word-forms with meanings, is of fundamental importance. This pleasure is quite distinct from the practical knowledge of a language, and not the same as an analytic understanding of its structure. It is simpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate than the enjoyment of literature. Thought it may be allied to some of the elements in the appreciation of verse, it does not need any poets, other than the nameless artists who composed the language. It can be strongly felt in the simple contemplation of vocabulary, or even in a string of names. ...Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that *cellar door* is 'beautiful,' especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful that, say, *sky*, and far more beautiful than *beautiful*, Well then, in Welsh, for me *cellar doors* are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.

-- J.R.R. Tolkien "English and Welsh" (lecture, 10/21/55) published in - Angles and Britons: O'Donnell Lectures (1963) and reprinted in: The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays(1983) by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien