What Qualities Make a Word Beautiful?

Some words glide through our minds like silkthink of terms such as love, halcyon, or starlight. Others, like moist, provoke a shiver. Most people sense this intuitively. But is it possible to separate a words beauty from its meaning?

Researchers Theresa Matzinger and David Koi from Vienna decided to investigate this question and to examine how the attractiveness of certain words might affect memory. Their findings offer insights into why some languages sound more melodious than others, why certain brand names captivate audiences, which syllables are easiest for learners to acquire, and how languages evolve over time.

For their study, Matzinger and Koi created 12 made-up English-like words. These were intentionally crafted to appear pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant, following standards established by linguist David Crystal in the 1990s. Each invented word had three syllables: beginning with a consonant cluster followed by a vowel and a consonant, and ending with the suffix -ious.

Participants, 100 native English speakers, were shown each word on a screen for three seconds, six times, while simultaneously hearing an audio recording of the word. They were asked to say the word aloud each time it appeared. The aim was to see if aesthetic appeal influenced memory retention.

Afterward, participants rated the words attractiveness on a 7-point scale and attempted to recall them. The pseudowords looked and sounded unusualdeliberately stripped of meaning to focus purely on the beauty of sound.

The results revealed a fascinating split: words that were moderately attractive were rated as the most pleasant, while the most appealing pseudowords were recalled most easily. The form of these words seemed to enhance memorability. Published in PLOS One, the study suggests that the perception of beauty in language may operate on two levels: one conscious and one subconscious. Words we remember best may not always be the ones we consciously find most enjoyable, but those whose patterns resonate more deeply with the mind.

Author: Noah Whitman