[General] smell vs scent

[kompstar]

1. The room was filled with the scent of flowers.
2. The room was filled with the smell of flowers.

3. The scent of fresh strawberries filled the room.
4. The smell of fresh strawberries filled the room.

Are the the sentences above correct and natural? Do they mean the same?

 

[Tdol]

For me, it depends on the attitude of the person saying/writing this. If I hated flowers or strawberries, I would use smell. As I don't. I would go for scent. Others may see things differently.

 

[andrewg927]

All the sentences are correct. I find the word "scent' quite poetic in that you will find that word more often in a magazine. But if you see an ad that starts with the word "smell," you know it is not good.

 

[andrewg927]

Like the word "aroma." Something that you don't utter in everyday conversations but find it quite frequent in magazines.

 

[Tdol]

Aroma is good for a positive smell like strawberries.

 

[kompstar]

I think I understand but I'm not sure. For example If I liked smell of strawberries it's better to say "The scent of fresh strawberries filled the room.", but If I say "The smell of fresh strawberries filled the room." is wrong? In everyday langauage the first and the second sentence may means the same in other words if I like aroma of strawberries I can use "smell" or "scent". Am I right?

 

[emsr2d2]

I think I understand but I'm not sure. For example, if I liked the smell of strawberries, it's better to say "The scent of fresh strawberries filled the room(no full stop here)", but if I say "The smell of fresh strawberries filled the room(no full stop here)" it's wrong? In everyday [STRIKE]langauage[/STRIKE] language, the first and the second sentence may [STRIKE]means[/STRIKE] mean the same. In other words, if I like the aroma of strawberries I can use "smell" or "scent". Am I right?

Both "The scent of fresh strawberries filled the room" and "The smell of fresh strawberries filled the room" are correct. The first is simply a little more poetic/evocative and, as others have said, would probably be the choice of advertisers.

 

[probus]

Scent tends to refer to animals. They may have their own scent or smell, and they may scent things. But we never scent them, we only smell them. In fact, people almost always smell things and very rarely scent them.

 

[andrewg927]

That is using "scent" as a verb".

 

[Tdol]

Scent tends to refer to animals. They may have their own scent or smell, and they may scent things. But we never scent them, we only smell them. In fact, people almost always smell things and very rarely scent them.

That may be because most of us have smelled dogs, but refrained from doing the scent inspections their canine companions do. ;-)