Writer goes viral for 'tasting' people's names

Writer Julie McDowall, who has a neurological condition called synesthesia, has gone viral on Twitter for prescribing 'tastes' to people's names.

On January 27, McDowall tweeted, "I have synesthesia which means I can ‘taste’ words. Ask me what your name tastes like."

The condition, according to Psychology Today, is where the stimulation of one cognitive pathway (say, hearing) gets mixed up with another (say, tasting). For some, this means they can associate tastes with sounds or numbers with colours, etc.

Quickly, the requests started piling in.

"Jesus is a Malteser" and "Scott is a Rich Tea biscuit being neatly snapped in half." Kates and Cates are "hearty slices of cake".

Sarah is a very "greasy" name and John is a button on an old man's cardigan.

McDowall also says she can sometimes prescribe sensations to names, too. Like Rachael, for example, that she described as "very jingly jangly bangles on my arm" and Cameron as the "clicks and whirrs of a machine". David is "a plastic spade dug into the sand on Blackpool beach".

The writer, who hosts a podcast called The Atomic Hobo, promptly started asking for donations for her name descriptions – which is fair as she was absolutely snowed under with thousands of requests.

In case you were wondering, her own name, Julie, is a watery eyeball.

Have a look at the whole thread here. It's pretty great.