Some People Eat Their Words

Here’s a post that was spawned by one of my conversations with Master Joh.

Imagine having a toffee-flavored parakeet, a French fry auntie, or a Math teacher who tastes like mustard.

There are people who can literally taste words, whether written or spoken ones. And this neurogical phenomenon is called synaesthesia (see Wikipedia) or, specifically, lexical-gustatory synaesthesia.

And although there are those who would label people who have such a condition weird or odd or different, having synthaesthesia works to one’s advantage, especially when it comes to committing things to memory, creating works of art or solving complex mathematical problems.

Literally tasting spoken or written words is just one form that synthaesia could take. Sometimes, people who have the condition could see colors associated with words or letters or numbers, e.g., the letter “H” is yellow or the number “2″ is pink. There are those who see personalities in their alphabet. Example, letter “B” is grumpy and lazy or the number “6″ is trusting.

The medical term for a person who has synaesthesia is “synesthete.”

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This post was brought to you by smiley letter Q and purple number 1.