Helen Wang writes:<\/p>\n
I have a question – what's the etymology of the English word \"mouthfeel\"? In the last few weeks in the UK I have heard the word \"mouthfeel\" several times, spoken very naturally as though it's an established English word. I was surprised because I remember k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f (lit. \"mouth-feel\") as being \"untranslatable\" or an \"awkward translation\". So I looked up \"mouthfeel\" online to see when this direct translation made its way into English. It even has a Wikipedia entry<\/a>! But no mention of k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f or any etymology. It seems to have just appeared in English – earliest usage in the 1930s.\u00a0 See The Big Apple, \"Mouthfeel\"<\/a> (4\/10\/12) by Barry Popik.<\/p>\n So I tried looking up k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f in Chinese and found it was not as ubiquitous as I'd remembered. My very quick and basic search gave the impression that k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f might be a translated term in Chinese, most examples being related to drinks such as wine or tea. I wondered if you knew more?<\/p>\n Already from what Helen tells us, it seems that this expression \"k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f \/ mouthfeel\" is anchored deeply neither in English nor in Chinese.<\/p>\n Let's start with English.\u00a0 The OED's first citation is 1939,\u00a0 Jrnl. Inst. Chem. Great Britain & Ireland<\/em> (Feb. 62):<\/p>\n Such properties as tenderness in meat, crispness in biscuits, smoothness in chocolate,..may be included in the ugly but apt expression \u2018mouth feel\u2019.<\/p>\n Judging from this citation, \"mouthfeel\" first arose in English in the 1930s, but where did it come from?\u00a0 I can't help but saying that it sounds like translatese to me. There's a certain awkwardness to the word that has even led more than one commentator to call it \"ugly\".<\/p>\n On his blog, Barry Popik talks about a \"'mouthfeel' backlash that began on food blogs in the 2000s\":<\/p>\n A strong condemnation appeared in a May 17, 2005 post titled \u201cThe Cliche Project: Words and Phrases Food Writers Should Stop Using\u201d on the blog A Blow to the Head<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cMouth feel.\u201d Do I need to explain this one? It\u2019s the worst phrase ever invented, not to mention one of the most over-used in food writing. It evokes the most disgusting imagery to me and at the same time makes me giggle.<\/i><\/p>\n See \"Six words<\/a>\" (7\/23\/10) — last couple of sentences in the o.p., and a bit in the comments, hearkening back to a comment to \"Word rage wins again<\/a>\" (7\/12\/09).\u00a0 The word \"mouthfeel\" (or \"mouth-feel\") has appeared on Language Log (or in citations from Language Log) a few hundred times going all the way back to around 2007, usually in connection with word aversion.<\/p>\n Despite the squeamishness over \"mouthfeel\" in some circles, it does have its advocates, as can be seen from the mag called Mouthfeel<\/a>.<\/p>\n If \"mouthfeel\" evinces unnaturalness in English, what about its counterpart in Chinese?\u00a0 Is it possible that English \"mouthfeel\" was borrowed from Chinese k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f?<\/p>\n The simple answer is no, that is not possible, since \"mouthfeel\" is already in English from the 1930s, whereas k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f, with one problematic exception in 1945 I know of that I'll discuss below, doesn't show up in Chinese until decades later.<\/p>\n K\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f is not in C\u00ed yu\u00e1n \u8fad\u6e90 <\/i>(\"Fountain of Words\"), a well-known dictionary of word origins published in 1979.\u00a0 Nor is k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f in\u00a0H\u00e0ny\u01d4 d\u00e0 c\u00eddi\u01cen (HDC) (Unabridged Dictionary of Sinitic), which indicates that it does not have much time depth. Quick searches through a few large databases fail to find much other than k\u01d2u g\u01cen \u53e3\u611f being used as a phonetic speller (\u53e3\u611f \u5207) in a couple of places in the Kangxi Dictionary (1716), which suggests that it wouldn't have been thought of as a word at that point.<\/p>\n In terms of lexicographical resources, perhaps the most telling piece of evidence about when k\u01d2ug\u01cen \u53e3\u611f (\"mouthfeel\") became widely accepted as a fixed term in Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) is that it doesn't appear in successive editions of Xi\u00e0nd\u00e0i H\u00e0ny\u01d4 c\u00eddi\u01cen \u73b0\u4ee3\u6c49\u8bed\u8bcd\u5178 (Dictionary of Modern Chinese) — the standard, official desk dictionary of MSM — until 1996 (p. 724a).<\/p>\n Google Books Ngram Viewer<\/a> generates the following graph for \u53e3\u611f.<\/p>\n
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