It sounds to me as if she's latched onto something with a germ of truth
in it and taken it to a ludicrous extreme.
Onomatopoeia would go some way to explain why lots of sounds described
by words beginning with 'b' start abruptly or are loud. But then there's
bubble, babble, burble and buzz which denote sounds that don't start
abruptly and aren't loud.
I was deeply suspicious of her 'experiment' to show the connection,
where one had to put words starting with the same letter in categories,
making up those categories as one went along. I think you'd have to
generate the categories in advance, and define how you are going to
determine whether a word fits a category, otherwise the whole exercise
is going to be so subjective it won't prove anything.
It was when she started talking about 'energy' that I decided it wasn't
worth taking her theory very seriously. When someone starts talking
about 'energy' they're either a) a scientist, using the word in its
technical sense, b) someone trying to add a specious scientific
respectability to what they're saying, or c) a salesman trying to sell
you dog-food or breakfast cereal.
[Please note that I realise that the previous paragraph is a caricature
and an over-simplification. I did it for the sake of effect.]
I'd reckon (with no more scientific basis that Ms Magnus) that there is
some correlation between the sounds of words and their meanings, and
beyond what one could explain by onomatopoeia. But I'm sure she takes
things too far.
--
Peter
http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/
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