If an older Catalan-speaking person hears about the petricor for the first time, it is possible that they think of the petricón, a measure of capacity that was equivalent to a quarter of a porrón and which, with the generalization of the decimal metric system, was agreed to be equivalent to a quarter of a liter, to make it round. A similar thing happened with the old pound, which was rounded to 400 grams, and the 100 grams served for the three ounces. Today they have practically disappeared from the shops, but they still resonate in the memory of some generations.
Weights and measures have been unified for a long time in much of the world, thanks to this system and other international conventions, which have facilitated trade between countries so that everyone knows the exact amount of what they sell and of what you buy. By dividing a quarter of a meridian by ten million, the meter was obtained, and by freezing and boiling water, 0º and 100º Celsius were established. However, there are still countries, such as the United States, that continue with miles, gallons and degrees Fahrenheit, as if they don’t need to understand the rest.
The petricon has disappeared from our vocabulary, but we have had the petricor for some time, although they have nothing to do with each other. Petrichor is, according to Termcat, the smell generated by rain when it falls on dry soil. And Obneo explains that it is “the smell that derives from an oil that permeates certain plants during periods of drought (as a mechanism to protect the seeds and prevent them from germinating in dry periods) and that is absorbed on the surface of the rocks”, and it is when it rains that “it is released into the air, together with another compound, geosmin (smell of the earth), and together, they produce the distinctive and recognizable smell of petrichor”.
In fact, it is the only scent with its own name. Because when it rains, due to the electrical storm, you can also smell the ozone. And we have the smell of flowers, like rose or jasmine, and of aromatic plants, like sajolida or rosemary. But petrichor is the smell of rain on dry land and, therefore, we shouldn’t say that “it smells like petrichor”, but rather “it feels like petrichor”.
The word petrichor is a cultic compound constructed from the prefixed form petri- ‘stone’ and the Greek word icor ‘blood of the Homeric gods’, and “was coined in 1964 by two Australian geologists, Isabel Joy Bear and Roderick G. Thomas, in an article in Nature magazine”, explains Obneo. Right now I can’t think of any scent more suggestive and necessary than this one.
