Word: smells
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...Smell is the most mysterious of human senses. Odor engineers need not only chemistry and physics but must also know something about history, psychology and sociology. This is the conclusion of a new book, Odors: Physiology and Control
Fashions in smell vary with geography, too. The authors point out that Chinese gourmets, rebuked for liking "rotten eggs," can point with horror to the "rotten milk" (cheese) that Westerners find so delicious. "The shade of offense from odors," the authors note, "is measured by time, place, occasion and inurement...
Odor In Pairs. Bad smells have affected the futures of big business, and the authors give most of their book to methods of sweetening people, homes, theaters, industrial products and the air around odoriferous factories. It is crude, they think, to conceal a bad smell by a stronger, pleasanter odor. A more efficient method is to get rid of the bad smell itself. This can often be done by washing it out of the air with water or absorbing it in activated carbon...
...subtle and much-used trick is to neutralize an unpleasant odor. How this works is uncertain, but odor engineers have found many "odor pairs," i.e., smells that cancel each other. The smell of cedarwood, for instance, cancels the smell of rubber. Many offensive-smelling commodities are marketed at present with their natural odors neutralized by an odor antagonist...
Away from war-clogged roads, but within earshot of the thump of collapsing bridges, China's peasants worked their land in immemorial rhythm. Across fields heavy with the smell of dung, water buffalo pulled ancient wooden plows. Civil war had hardly touched this part of China before. "We are a peace-loving, obedient people," said one old woman. "We are not rich. We want only to do our work. Will the Communists hurt...