People who can’t see are blind, and people who can’t hear are deaf. What is the term for people who lack the sense of smell or taste? Smell-less? Taste-less?
You: “Goodness, you must be an anosmic ageusiatic.”
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A related term is dysgeusia, the condition of having an abnormal, presumably bad, taste in your mouth. This word offers a range of uses. Basic application: “Marge, that velvet Elvis painting is the last word in dysgeusia.” “Thanks, we’re the envy of the trailer park.”
We put this to a flavor expert at Topps and got this reply: “It’s a lot of things. It’s hard to explain. It’s fruity, orange-ish, with butterscotch notes.” We were quite taken with the notion of detecting butterscotch notes in bubble gum and had a fleeting vision of Topps taste testers sampling the latest batch: “It’s a naive domestic chew, but I think you’ll be amused by its presumption.” The point is, bubble gum tastes like nothing in nature because it’s a mixture of things. Let’s call it bubble gum flavor and let it go at that.
Cecil Adams can deliver the Straight Dope on any topic. Write Cecil at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611, or E-mail him at cecil@chicagoreader.com. Cecil’s latest compendium of knowledge, The Straight Dope Tells All, is available at bookstores everywhere.
