a.) Bring your teeth close together and breath out, with your tongue hesitating over the back of your front teeth.
b.) Sigh, giving a slight smile.
c.) Open mouth slightly and breath out like you would when fake screaming.
d.) Bring tongue against base of top teeth.
e.) Pucker lips and breath out.
f.) Duckface, spitting a gentle thud noise against the back of your front teeth.
g.) Pucker lips again and breath out.
h.) Let the sound die off your lips.
i.) Smile. You just said cellar door!
2. Why "Cellar Door" means what it means.
Cellar door is in fact a sound created to resemble it's actuality. Cellar Door is a beautiful phrase. "Cell"- the sound is slippery, eery, and foreboding. Almost like the creak of an opening cellar door. The "-ar" follow up is like the rush of wind coming from a musty exhalation of trapped air. "Door" is an open ended sound, one that holds many mysteries of the direction it is taking. Could this door, or the sound "Door" be leading to a good or bad place? What kind of adventure comes behind such a deep, ominous reverberation of breath?
3. What "Cellar Door" actually means.
cellar (n.)
early 13c., "store room," from Anglo-French celer, Old French celier "cellar, underground passage" (12c., Modern French cellier), from Latin cellarium "pantry, storeroom," literally "group of cells;" which is either directly from cella (see cell), or from noun use of neuter of b adjective cellarius "pertaining to a storeroom," from cella. The sense in late Middle English gradually shifted to "underground room." Cellar door attested by 1640s. door (n.)
Middle English merger of Old English dor (neuter; plural doru) "large door, gate," and Old English duru (fem., plural dura) "door, gate, wicket;" both from Proto-Germanic *dur- (cf. Old Saxon duru, Old Norse dyrr, Danish dør, Old Frisian dure, Old High German turi, German Tür).
The Germanic words are from PIE *dhwer- "a doorway, a door, a gate" (cf. Greek thura, Latin foris, Gaulish doro "mouth," Gothic dauro "gate," Sanskrit dvárah "door, gate," Old Persianduvara- "door," Old Prussian dwaris "gate," Russian dver' "a door").
The base form is frequently in dual or plural, leading to speculation that houses of the original Indo-Europeans had doors with two swinging halves. Middle English had both dure and dor; form dore predominated by 16c., but was supplanted by door.
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. [Ogden Nash]
4. And this is what it looks like....
5. "Cellar Door" to the Senses
a.) Smell: The underside of a mossy stone, half-buried in thick dirt two hours after a light rainfall.
b.) Taste: The honey you extract when you pull the stem of a honeysuckle, scavenging for the clear, dewy drop of juice.
c.) Feel: A scraped knee from a fall off your bike.
d.) Look: A bloody handprint at the edge of your window on a snowy winter's night.
e.) Sound: The creaking of a door opening onto a mystery, adventure, or something all-together impossibly amazing.
Cellar Door
1. How to say "Cellar Door".
a.) Bring your teeth close together and breath out, with your tongue hesitating over the back of your front teeth.b.) Sigh, giving a slight smile.
c.) Open mouth slightly and breath out like you would when fake screaming.
d.) Bring tongue against base of top teeth.
e.) Pucker lips and breath out.
f.) Duckface, spitting a gentle thud noise against the back of your front teeth.
g.) Pucker lips again and breath out.
h.) Let the sound die off your lips.
i.) Smile. You just said cellar door!
2. Why "Cellar Door" means what it means.
Cellar door is in fact a sound created to resemble it's actuality. Cellar Door is a beautiful phrase. "Cell"- the sound is slippery, eery, and foreboding. Almost like the creak of an opening cellar door. The "-ar" follow up is like the rush of wind coming from a musty exhalation of trapped air. "Door" is an open ended sound, one that holds many mysteries of the direction it is taking. Could this door, or the sound "Door" be leading to a good or bad place? What kind of adventure comes behind such a deep, ominous reverberation of breath?3. What "Cellar Door" actually means.
cellar (n.)early 13c., "store room," from Anglo-French celer, Old French celier "cellar, underground passage" (12c., Modern French cellier), from Latin cellarium "pantry, storeroom," literally "group of cells;" which is either directly from cella (see cell), or from noun use of neuter of b adjective cellarius "pertaining to a storeroom," from cella. The sense in late Middle English gradually shifted to "underground room." Cellar door attested by 1640s.
door (n.)
Middle English merger of Old English dor (neuter; plural doru) "large door, gate," and Old English duru (fem., plural dura) "door, gate, wicket;" both from Proto-Germanic *dur- (cf. Old Saxon duru, Old Norse dyrr, Danish dør, Old Frisian dure, Old High German turi, German Tür).
The Germanic words are from PIE *dhwer- "a doorway, a door, a gate" (cf. Greek thura, Latin foris, Gaulish doro "mouth," Gothic dauro "gate," Sanskrit dvárah "door, gate," Old Persianduvara- "door," Old Prussian dwaris "gate," Russian dver' "a door").
The base form is frequently in dual or plural, leading to speculation that houses of the original Indo-Europeans had doors with two swinging halves. Middle English had both dure and dor; form dore predominated by 16c., but was supplanted by door.
4. And this is what it looks like....
5. "Cellar Door" to the Senses
a.) Smell: The underside of a mossy stone, half-buried in thick dirt two hours after a light rainfall.b.) Taste: The honey you extract when you pull the stem of a honeysuckle, scavenging for the clear, dewy drop of juice.
c.) Feel: A scraped knee from a fall off your bike.
d.) Look: A bloody handprint at the edge of your window on a snowy winter's night.
e.) Sound: The creaking of a door opening onto a mystery, adventure, or something all-together impossibly amazing.