11

Why do we "wear" perfume, and not "apply" it?

For example, why do we say "Alice wore her mother's perfume", and not "Alice applied her mother's perfume"?

What's your take on this?

apaderno
  • 59,185
Logophile
  • 1,369
  • 10
    She first applied it, then wore it :) – mplungjan Mar 15 '11 at 12:11
  • @mplungjan: please elaborate... – Logophile Mar 15 '11 at 12:15
  • @mplungjan, now that you reposted your comment as an answer, could you delete it? – F'x Mar 15 '11 at 12:29
  • 4
    I'm confused by this question. As mplungjan implies, "applying" something is the act of putting it on, and "wearing" is the state of having it on. Everything we put on our bodies is "worn". We wear hats, shoes, shirts, makeup, earrings, belts, watches. (The only exception I can think of is a tattoo, which people have — but perhaps that is because it is essentially permanent.) In any case, "applying" in that situation would make no sense at all. It would be like saying "I am starting the car" in the situation where you are driving the car. – Kosmonaut Mar 15 '11 at 15:42
  • 1
    @Kos: Probably because you're a native English speaker and perceive the world differently. :-) In certain languages (OP's is Hindi?), perfume would be considered different from hats watches etc., probably because it's not sth tangible that sits on your body—when you go home, you can't set it aside to be worn again—and thus (the equivalent of) "wearing perfume" would be wrong, odd, or at least poetic. (I don't know if any European or East Asian languages have this distinction…) Of course, what applies to perfume applies to lipstick, eyeliner etc. also (at least English is consistent here). – ShreevatsaR Mar 15 '11 at 18:55
  • 1
    @Kos: BTW, about distinctions felt in English: (1) You felt that tattoos were an exception, but Google has 45000 results for 'wear a tattoo', 27000 for 'wore a tattoo'. (2) Someone below felt that 'dressed in perfume' is odd (or did they? I just assumed so), but there are 1,010,000 results for "dressed in * and perfume". In both cases, something interesting is going on here, since not all native speakers' intuition agree? – ShreevatsaR Mar 15 '11 at 19:03
  • @ShreevatsaR: This doesn't have to do with my native language, and doesn't even have to do with perfume; semantically, the concept of apply (or put on) is the act of putting something onto your body. We can't use the word wear to talk about the act of applying something to the body, and we can't use the word apply to talk about the act of wearing something. The question of "why wear and not have or something else" is interesting, the question of "why apply and not affix or something else" is interesting, but apply vs. wear makes no sense. – Kosmonaut Mar 15 '11 at 20:47
  • @ShreevatsaR: Using Google in that way is always completely misleading. I notice there are also 29,400 results for "pilot a car", but that doesn't mean this is a normal expression. The fact is that, even with these Google results, between "wear a tattoo" and "have a tattoo", "have a tattoo" is used in 99.7% of all cases (30600 vs. 4350000). But those numbers still don't mean anything concrete about usage, particularly native usage. There is too much junk you can't account for in Google results to conclude anything about specific phrases. – Kosmonaut Mar 15 '11 at 20:49
  • 1
    @Kosmon: Let me restate what I said: in other languages I know, perfume (and lipstick etc.) are definitely not treated the same as clothes, and are not used with the same verb that is used where "wear" is for clothes. The verb that is used for perfume is closest to "apply". This is about how your native language influences semantics. You even say "semantically, the concept of apply (or put on) is the act of putting something onto your body", and this is exactly what is done with perfume, isn't it? And yet in English one tends to use "wear", because the perception of the act is different. – ShreevatsaR Jul 22 '11 at 14:14
  • @Kosmonaut: Actually, it's something even simpler: in English you perceive wearing as the state of having it on (as you said), but in some other languages you perceive (the equivalent of) wearing as the "state of having accomplished the act of putting it on". And it's not surprising that different verbs are used based on the kind of "putting it on". A learner of English whose native tongue is one of these languages tends to map the English verb "wear" to "the act of putting on [clothes, etc.]" (as which indeed it can be interpreted almost always, except in contexts like perfume here). – ShreevatsaR Jul 22 '11 at 14:28
  • in Romanian , which pertains to the Roman family of languages, one does use the verb "a purta" to wear in order to express the fact that he has applied fragrance and the smell is still on . Also in German the verb "tragen" to wear is used in the expression " einen Duft tragen" to wear a perfume –  Sep 24 '12 at 14:57

2 Answers2

10

My take (was a comment since I could not find sources):

Since perfume engulfs you, it is worn like a cloak. So you apply some perfume to your wrist or elsewhere on your body, and from then on you wear it.

mplungjan
  • 29,914
  • It appears that this is just an idiosyncrasy of English for which a logical explanation can be found. :-) – ShreevatsaR Mar 15 '11 at 15:14
  • ^ can or can't? – n0nChun Mar 15 '11 at 15:53
  • Can. - - I will remove the word – mplungjan Mar 15 '11 at 17:54
  • 1
    Your comment that remains has a better distinction, in my opinion. The application of perfume would be putting on the perfume. We don't say, "I dressed in my mother's perfume." We say, "put on" or "applied." Once it is there it is no longer being "applied." "I am wearing perfume" doesn't seem to have an appropriate alternative using "apply": I am applying perfume; I have applied perfume. The same terminology seems to work with makeup as well: She is wearing red lipstick. – MrHen Mar 15 '11 at 17:59
4

The earliest citations of wearing perfume refer to perfume boxes and nosegays--accessories that were physically worn around the neck. I can't find any history of perfume reference that confirms this, but it seems plausible that the use of wearing perfume has its origins here.

Callithumpian
  • 24,764