>Hello. I wonder if anyone can answer a possibly dumb question - it's a
>matter of settling a dispute. Does a frequently sniffed rose have less
>fragrance than one that is not sniffed? A friend of mine insists that
>roses at a convenient height for smelling always smell less intense than
>ones that you have to go out of your way to smell. He thinks that with
>each sniff, some of the fragrance disappears and is not replaced.
Some of the fragrance definitely disappears into your nose. Otherwise,
you'd smell nothing. The question is, Is it replaced at a sufficient
rate to keep the odor at the same intensity. Maybe not. Perhaps I'll have
some beginning biology students do this in lab. You'd want a large cross-
section of sniffers, of course. However, the other thing that can occur is
that one's nose's nerve cells get "fatigued" or desensitized from
stimulation and one ceases to smell much.
El estado normal de Espa¤a es decadencia permanente.
(The normal state of things in Spain is permanent decadence)
Jos‚ Ortega y Gasset
Por eso que me cae bien Espa¤a.
(That's why I like Spain)
Jack Davis
