Feel the tast of the change in my pocket.

May 30, 2007 8:53 PM

If I handle certain metal things, especially pennies, I get a metallic taste in my mouth. I know there's a term for it but I can't find it no matter the combo of words I dump into Google. Help me green people!
posted by @homer to health & fitness (11 comments total)

There's something called Dysgeusia
posted by misha at 9:28 PM on May 30, 2007

If you have serious allergy symptoms, though, then you may be looking at Metal fume fever.
posted by misha at 9:29 PM on May 30, 2007

Are you thinking of synaesthesia?
posted by ludwig_van at 10:14 PM on May 30, 2007

Synaesthesia or synesthesia is the term for when things that ought to be sensed by one sensory modality (such as touch) produce a sensation in another sensory modality (such as taste.) Therefore you touch a penny but it gives you the sensation of taste in your mouth.

Most common of the synaesthesias, I believe, is association of a color or a visual texture with certain sounds or music. The kind you describe isn't familiar to me.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:16 PM on May 30, 2007

Beaten to the punch, by good old ludwig_van!
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:16 PM on May 30, 2007

It's my understanding that synesthesia is more like "tasting" blue and such. The taste you get when handling a penny is the same principle which causes you to develop the taste of garlic in your mouth if you were to put a clove in your shoe. This doesn't jibe with the criteria for synesthesia. I tried googling various words with "absorb" to no avail, but that's pretty much what's happening - the skin is absorbing the copper.
posted by Iamtherealme at 10:34 PM on May 30, 2007

Of course - hitting "post" always works like a charm. This article states that the metal smell that you get on your hands after handling coins is actually compounds in the skin reacting to the metals. And to make a jump in logic, since smell is so closely related to taste, perhaps that's what's giving the taste sensation. I'm interested to hear other responses - googling "handling coins" and "metallic taste" only brings up a few results, and I'm sure it's quite common for this to happen, isn't it?
posted by Iamtherealme at 10:42 PM on May 30, 2007

What is the principle that allows the garlic taste to appear when a clove is in the shoe?
posted by @homer at 11:05 PM on May 30, 2007

I wish I knew - google didn't turn up a specific term for it.
posted by Iamtherealme at 11:21 PM on May 30, 2007

I always wondered why I associate a color with every number... so it's a real condition?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:39 AM on May 31, 2007

From what i can vaguely recall metal itself doesnt have a taste or smell, what you actually taste/smell is blood, or as Iamtherealme put it the reaction of the acids on your skin with the metal. It's a pretty poignant smell, and it's possible that the sensation of touching coins is simply bringing back the smell/taste associated with it.

It happens to me as well to some degree, but usually only with specific metals such as copper. As we got rid of copper coins quite some time ago it's hardly a daily occurrence.

Googling metal blood and smell seems to get quite a few results, hopefully that helps somewhat...
posted by eeno at 8:33 AM on May 31, 2007