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As I understand it, euphonious words are those with pleasant sounds, and cacophonous words are ones which sound harsh. Knowing this, does one have to strip the meaning from words before being able to classify them as cacophonous and euphonious? Are there any best practices to utilizes when classifying the words or is it a wholly subjective process?

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    Most of us would probably classify gash, and cuddly, the same way, but there would probably be less of a consensus if we considered ogre and trout.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented May 24, 2014 at 23:25
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    The cacophonous ones sound bad, and the euphonious ones sound good. What's the problem? The perceived good- or badness can refer to the actual sounds of the words, or just as likely to their meanings. Either way, somebody doesn't like cacophony, and somebody does like euphony; you can do what you like with that information.
    – John Lawler
    Commented May 25, 2014 at 0:18
  • There is no problem, I asked this question to improve my understanding of the terms, both your comments were helpful, thank you.
    – sheeldotme
    Commented May 25, 2014 at 0:23

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It's definitely not wholly subjective.

Technically, the suffix -phon defines the phenomenon as purely of mechanical origin and not semantic. As such, I do not think "one has to strip the meaning from words before being able to classify them."

That said, words that have positive and/or pleasant meanings tend to sound pleasant. This is not grammar, but probably a characteristic of Nature.

Incidentally, the word harsh as in "cacophonous words are ones which sound harsh" has both mechanical as well as semantic significance:

  1. unpleasantly rough or jarring to the senses
  2. cruel or severe

Finally, cacophony is more about a discordance among sounds than the sounds themselves. Words are no more than combinations of individual sounds.

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You could assemble a focus group of monolingual Estonians and Latvians--near neighbors whose languages are of completely separate families and very different sounds. Then select English words to test various hypotheses, such as the hypothesis that words without stop consonants and vowels that do not include /æ/ (words such as "insomnia," or "euphonious" itself) are euphonious, while those with the opposite characteristics (such as "compacted," or "cacophonous" itself) are cacophonous. It might be possible thus to confirm or disconfirm that these preferences transcend cultural differences, as preferences in facial appearance have been shown to do.

There is some published research on euphony, such as Lloyd Bishop, "Phonological Correlates of Euphony" The French Review 49.1 (1975): 11-22.

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I am curious as to the significance of such cauterization? What is gained by such an exercise? Guttural and nasal sounds could shrivel the ear or make it chime.

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    I find cauterization to be cacophonous here, and would prefer the more euphonious categorisation
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented May 25, 2014 at 11:58
  • @FumbleFingers Both sound very similar /ˈkôtəˌrīz /ˈkatəgəˌrīz -- your discomfort is purely with the meanings. No cacophony there.
    – Kris
    Commented May 26, 2014 at 12:46
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    @Kris: I was whimsically stretching a point (to make the point that Leland had used the wrong word! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented May 26, 2014 at 13:12

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