The Screaming of Flowers: a rant.

Photo of Peterhof Upper Garden Arch, HDR, by michael clarke stuff



I've just been offered Some Victorian-style Garden Arches by a company called One Regent Place.

I'm not in need of garden arches of any kind, but as I read more or less anything I read the description anyway. 

Add climbing plants such as sweet-smelling jasmine, fragrant roses and wisteria, sweet peas and clematis and soon you'll have an arch with a complete cacophony of colours and smells.

Cacophony?

The annoying thing isn't so much that they've applied a word meaning horrible noise to a group of flowers, it's that I've spent the week since the catalogue arrived wondering what they meant.

Cornucopia?

Copiousness?

Chock-fullness?

The really awful thing is that if I think about it long enough then cacophony might even start making sense.

Word To Use Today, Though Not About Flowers Unless You Really Mean It: cacophony. This word comes from the two Greek words kakos, bad, and phōnē, voice.

PS Actually, I think I've worked it out. They wanted a synonym for riot, didn't they? 

Dangerous things, thesauruses!