Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 09:50:19 -0500

From: "Dale F.Coye" CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: New word? mouthfeel



Perusing the ingredients on the package of Swissmiss milk chocolate hot cocoa

mix I note that they included some partially hydrogenated soybean oil. The

good people at Swissmiss anticipated my puzzlement over why any soybean oil,

whether partially or fully hydrogenated, would find its way into this

beverage, and added this fascinating parentheses: (to provide smooth

mouthfeel). A friend who loves to cook told me that this word has been

around nutritionist circles for some time, but I'd never come across it.

I don't know if this qualifies for a new word, not having the newer

dictionaries against which to judge it, but you've got to admit this is a

word with great potential. Here I'd been making do with "texture" for so

long, a word clearly inadequate to the task assigned it. But Mouthfeel--

this word will go far! Now I can finally explain to people why it is I don't

like tofu.

Further this word should be adopted in linguistic circles and among poets

and orators to explain why certain words work better in certain contexts.

Monongahela has better mouthfeel than Allegheny, Kirk Douglas has better

mouthfeel than his real name Izzy Demsky, French has better mouthfeel than

German or Russian... Everything falls into place.