The world is full of smells. Good smells and bad smells, pleasant and unpleasant smells, fragrant and pungent smells. Though the nose is not our most reliable advisor in perception ¡ª eyesight is far more important, as is well known ¡ª smells clearly have a say in our view of the world. And there is quite a lot to say about them, too.

In Japanese, the most neutral term for verbalizing what only the nose sees is the noun „ö¤¤ (nioi, smell). It has a wide applicability, capturing both the smeller and the "smellable." To start with the former, a distinction must be made between the intentional act of inhaling the odor of something, which is „ö¤¤¤òĞᤰ (nioi o kagu, to sniff something), and the act of being smelly oneself, which is expressed by the verb „ö¤¦ (niou). In English, both receiver and emitter just smell.

As to the latter, „ö¤¤ attaches to any real or perceived source of a smell, such as ánÓͤ΄ö¤¤ (sh¨­yu no nioi, the smell of soy sauce), ѧУ¤ÎÌåÓığ^¤Î„ö¤¤(gakk¨­ no taiikukan no nioi, the smell of a school gym), or ÓêÉϤ¬¤ê¤ÎµÀ·¤Î„ö¤¤ (ameagari no d¨­ro no nioi, the smell of asphalt after rain). The noun normally combines with the verb ¤¹¤ë (suru, to do), as in, say, ×ã¤Î„ö¤¤¤¬¤¹¤ë (ashi no nioi ga suru, it smells like feet) or ¥Ö¥ë©`¥Á©`¥º¤Î„ö¤¤¤¬¤¹¤ë (bur¨± chiizu no nioi ga suru, it smells like blue cheese). Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference.