A reference to the perceptions of linguistic sounds: From a phonesthetic perspective, the most important linguistic element is not vocabulary, but sound. The pedigreed sounds of Indo-European echo in virtually every utterance made by speakers.

Sound has proven to be a profitable phonesthetic tool in the never-ending struggle to commercially manipulate people from the names of cars, to the "snap, crackle, and pop" of cereals. Sound symbolism is present everywhere in product names and slogans. If English were not really a sound symbolic language, advertisers would not be able to communicate much of their current products on the radio and television.