I don’t know who decided that “cellar door” was the most beautiful phrase in the English language, but I have to say that I don’t agree. Not even a little bit. I find it to be a somewhat ugly, clumsy phrase, with little lyrical quality and, visually, with too much slant to the right. I think about these sorts of things too much, I agree.
Every once in a while, I write a combination of words with which I become quite pleased, and, as I glance about the room, I silently preen for a few moments before I move on with my writing. No one ever notices, sure, but little literaku moments such as these sometimes make my whole day worthwhile.
Just now in an essay on censorship in Ancien Regime France, I wrote: curtailing scurrilous printing. You can leave the printing out, it’s the combination of curtailing and scurrilous that I quite like, and that will make today worthwhile.
Assuming I finish this paper soon.