Talk:Petrichor

Untitled
That's really interesting! I didn't even know that this smell was true or even existent - I thought i might have been some sort of dust kicked up by the rain or something - I didn't know this was actually a compound. Definitely one of the most pleasant smells.


 * Yeah, I had the scent confused with the smell of ozone after a big thunderstorm. I'd like to see what this article looks like once expanded. MisplacedFate1313 (talk) 07:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Forgive me for being skeptical but the smell associated with rain is a pretty widespread one - it seems unlikely given the wide variation of plant life that a single plant-based oil could be responsible for the so-called "smell of rain" everywhere. I'd have thought a more likely explanation is the smell of wet dust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.203.155 (talk) 22:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

What plants do this? ('certain plants' isn't sufficient? Is it only Australian plants? Do they inhibit any similar characteristics? DUden (talk) 22:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The articles cited from the journal "Nature" on which this wikipedia article is mainly based are rather obsolete. That is particularly true for the "oil" mentioned and its chemical composition. The first article from 1964 is relevant because it introduces the term "petrichor", but in terms of analytical information it is useless. Note also that the chemical geosmin, nowadays regarded as largely responsible for the smell (it is produced by certain bacteria in the soil), has not been identified or mentioned in those early papers. It would be helpful to have more recent literature references.138.246.2.111 (talk) 19:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Rain odor associated with asphalt
There is another post-rain smell that occurs over and near asphalt roads and parking areas that is not mentioned in this article. I've never seen it discussed anywhere.Tedtoal (talk) 14:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

In popular culture
The entire "in popular culture" is unreferenced and appears to be original research. Unless reliable secondary sources (that is, not the works themselves) can be found, it needs to be removed. In fact, I tried to remove it today, but was reverted by. Andy, I hope you'll work towards finding those sources. (For an example of the level of sourcing I'd consider adequate, see the literary symbolism section of Quincunx — the sources there were mostly found using Google books and Google scholar; every entry there has a secondary source that directly connects the work in question with the subject of the article.) —David Eppstein (talk) 02:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There are two things I really dislike on WP: popular culture sections and blunt editing, where a simplistic rote action is applied across too wide a range. In this case though, I'd have to favour the section.
 * I make no comment on #1 & #4 - I know nothing of these, they're unsourced too, so delete away.
 * However #2 & #3 are certainly significant. They're also related as, unusually, the same author, Neil Gaiman, is involved (he's not a common writer for Dr Who). This is an author known for the level of his allusions and for not slipping in an obscure detail like petrichor without it being used significantly. In the two Who stories, the use of the term (and its deliberately self-referential use in the later advert) is probably the most prominent use this word has ever had in the UK. Before this, it's a word that was simply unknown outside lexicographic geeks. The concept appears in American Gods, although I don't know if the word itself is. This is all primary of course, not the sources that we do rightly aspire to. As Gaiman is a fairly well studied author these days, I'd expect that there would be such commentary around if one were to search for it. One could also simply ask him - he's pretty approachable on line, and in fact he's even a FOAF (although I hate to play on fandom), but this would still be primary sourcing.
 * You are quite right - I have no secondary sources for these, and if none are forthcoming then our policy states that it's better to remove them than to leave them unsourced. However the support for them even without this is quite enough for me to revert their immediate removal. I support your tagging of them as needing sourcing, and if no sources are forthcoming then I wouldn't object to their removal. However we ought to try and find those sources first, not delete expediently. Particularly in this case, as the Who use of petrichor really is one of the most notable uses the word has received. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:03, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I did find a reasonable book source for the Dr. Who references, that at least linked the perfume one as a callback to the other one. It also included some of the other items mentioned in this section, but in a way that made it look like it was taken from our article, so I don't think we can use it as a source for them because it would be too circular. I also removed some material that either seemed very minimal in the context of the whole work (the American Gods reference) or that I couldn't find anything about (the play). By the way, in the Dr. Who Idris password sequence, I'm pretty sure that "eleven" is a reference to Gaiman's friend Jason Webley. But I guess that has little relevance to this article even if it could be sourced. By the way, is this article supposed to be only about the specific word "Petrichor" or more generally about the smell of rain? Because literary references to the smell of rain should be very easy to find and at this point this looks very skewed towards recent and tech-friendly tastes rather than providing anything like a neutral sample. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:40, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Disappointing
I don't know why I bothered coming to the wikipedia for a definition of a word I first heard on Doctor Who. Not only does the following website (http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/question479.htm) provide a more well-rounded definition, but this wikipedia article doesn't even mention the significance of the word on an episode of Dr Who. Isn't it relevant that many people didn't even know this word existed until they watched Dr Who? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.38.227.6 (talk) 00:30, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * So why not have a go at editing the article yourself? I can't see why Dr Who requires a mention here, just because you didn't know a word existed previous to your TV watching experience doesn't make it worthy of an encyclopaedic mention, if it did then we would be crediting Countdown (game show)Countdown constantly. Fraggle81 (talk) 10:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Because Wiki has an 'in popular culture' section on many of its articles, I think it's fair to assume there might have been a mention of Dr. Who here. Having the word as part of the narrative in a popular TV series is surely more significant than a fleeting mention in Countdown. 146.112.56.75 (talk) 10:27, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Petrichor
"Some scientists believe that humans appreciate the rain scent because ancestors may have relied on rainy weather for survival." Wiki

That is true on the surface, but I fail to see why the scent of petrichor was important to our survival after the rain. I mean TWC tells me our sense of smell of petrichor is 200,000 times more sensitive than sharks to blood. I have a sinus condition and it is all the same to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.133.90.215 (talk) 17:50, 4 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I think this is a good question. Unfortunately, the source cited doesn't, in turn, cite any sources, leaving the "some scientists" insufficiently vague. Which scientists believe this and why? A good secondary source, the kind that Wikipedia likes to use, should cite primary sources. El piel (talk) 22:51, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Only in the OED! Why?
It seems that, among the "respectable" dictionaries, only the Oxford English Dictionary has "petrichor" amongst their ranks.

Does anyone know why? Why the OED sees it as a word and why no one else seems too? It seems that that would be a very important sub-subject to add. 174.26.225.155 (talk) 00:51, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Presently, it's in Merriam-Webster, Collins, Cambridge, and AHD. I also didn't get any hits in older editions of dictionaries. Looking at the n-grams, the term took off after the year 2000, so the references were probably just slow to add it. Opencooper (talk) 12:43, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Intention
The sentence:

"This would indicate that the plants exude the oil in order to safeguard the seeds from germination under duress."

It seems superfluous considering the preceeding one already mentions the oil reatards seed germination.

This sentence also assumes intention (with the "in order to") which I would avoid as it isn't scientific.

I suggest to remove it. Does anyone have concerns with this?

Iwisich (talk) 10:33, 29 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello . Welcome to Wikipedia. You don't need to go to the talk page for every single edit, as per WP:BOLD. Especially for grammatical changes or copy editing, you just do it. If someone objects, they will let you know one way or the other (sometimes impolitely). If you change the actual content of the article or alter it meaningfully, make sure your content is WP:Verifiable from a WP:RS, plus avoid WP:SYNTH, violations of WP:NPOV, WP:COPYVIO, etc. As I said, sometimes people are rude and argumentative, but that is most frequently only for controversial articles. This one doesn't seem terribly controversial to me. Look around at some of the links I just typed (see especially WP:5P), and have fun editing. If you get stuck somehow, there are several places to ask for assistance. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:03, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I am not a biologist, but reading the "MIT paragraph", I would assume that there is an evolutionary advantage in a mechanism for suppressing germination following light rain as opposed to heavy rain. The sentence could be reinstated if edited to replace "in order to safeguard" with "safeguards", with appropriate citation(s). Emyr42redux (talk) 09:44, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * sofixit Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 12:12, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Precise meaning of petrichor
It is unclear to me from the article if petrichor refers exclusively to the oil emitted by plants, or if it refers to the combined scent of the oil and geosmin. If it's the latter, then what is the name of the oil? This should be made more clear (by people knowledgeable in the subject, i.e. not me). — UnladenSwallow (talk) 08:00, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

"That is:" in refs
, what is the purpose of beginning some refs with That is:? It seems like the refs stand fine on their own with that preamble. Schazjmd  (talk)  18:06, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

"On the clean smell of the earth"
Native French speaker here; the word "propre" does mean "clean", but it also means "proper" or "own". Having read the article, and searched for occurrences of the word propre in the rest of the journal, to get familiar with the language at the time, I don't believe what was meant here is the "clean smell of earth", but rather "earth's proper smell" or "earth's own smell". This is probably best translated, simply, to "On the smell of earth", but I would leave this to native English speakers to decide. Nicolascorreard (talk) 21:34, 13 June 2021 (UTC)