Moist
The very wonderful Language Log web site has a great (and rather long) analysis of words that many people dislike. The word they especially focus on is moist.
Apparently a LOT of people, especially women, really hate the word moist. I don’t know that I HATE it, but I have to admit that it sort of gives me the creeps. I think I associate it with an unwholesome kind of dampness — like something that would appear in an H.P. Lovecraft story. Damp is just sort of wet. But moist is possibly putrid, a little sticky, like…rotting flesh.
Good lord — I guess I really do hate the word moist. Why else would such repulsive images come to mind?
Other words I dislike:
Like many people, I dislike the word “panties”. As one person quoted in the Language Log pointed out, it sounds sort of “pedophile-ish”.
I also dislike the word “coupon”. My mother (I think) used to pronounce it “cue-pon” and that drove me crazy so that may have something to do with it. Plus, it sounds vaguely effeminate — in a bad way.
The word “puffy” annoys me.
“Tissue”. I know the Kleenex people are thrilled about this, but I can’t bear to call that sort of product anything BUT “Kleenex”. “Tissue” is a sissy-word if it’s used to describe anything but a part of your body.
I’m sure more will come to mind later but its late now and I should go to bed. What words do YOU hate?
I hate the words “You-have-a-30-page-paper-due-in-a-month-that-you-haven’t-even-started-yet,” but that is probably just me.
AdÐ the word “POP”. As in those colors really make the room “POP”. Makes me want to “POP” them with a tire iron- repeatedly
I have a whole laundry list, but these are pet peeves:
lite–as a modifier; it’s annoying
diet–remove the t and you have the real meaning (just a joke)
obese-an ugly word used in ugly ways. I prefer ample, generous or fat.
not really a word dislike, but extraneous “e” added to anything, especially tacky real estate developments. Like Waterside “Pointe.”
“like” as a space filler, its ok in a simile but has started to replace uh or “you know” when someone really doesn’t, like, have anything to say
Oh god, yes. Like as a filler drives me absolutely crazy. At first I thought it was only an irritating spoken tic — but then I saw people actually writing, like, LIKE all over the place!
yea…moist is kinda a weird word.Unless its a cake i dont know of another reason to use it. after all if a cake was wet that would be bad.YEA yer right..”coupon”? that has to be some Frenchy french word cuz can you even proounce the “U” in it without odd contortion?another one… Wednesday… come on whats with the frikkin “d” can we be rid of it?And i hate when Black people refer to themselves as either African Americans or colored people. Come on…dont be so uptight. You are black…im not offended if you called me white.be proud. Im almost 100% Italian and nothing is sexier than dark skin. be proud.and the color thing white is a color too!! so i guess i am a “colored” person too. who isnt?ooooo ya…i hate the new term for vehicles with hatchbacks called “crossovers” ITS A STATION WAGON PEOPLE!! Gotta Love marketing eh? Its NEVER been so cool to own a grocery getter.
Ok, I have one now…”sputum.” It sounds exactly like what it is.
YES. I hate the word sputum. And “pus”.
I find this column hilarious! My best friend and past roommate hated the words, moist, panties and ointment….
Wellll one day our boss thought it would be funny to call her at home (she was off that day) and leave her a message stating..”Misty’s here and needs that ointment to fix her moist panties”
I swear I heard her screaming EWWWW from our apt!
Moist is the worst word in the English language. When people say things are moist, I just makes me squeamish. I also hate the words “ointment” and “Foil”
I hate it when people throw around “Islamofascist.” It’s such a contrived, scare-mongering word. Take the average American’s fear and hatred of radical Islam and marry it with an innate fear and hatred of fascism (which most Americans couldn’t define if pressed) and you have an annoying, over-used, and almost meaningless word. It’s as if they wanted to call it “Islamonazism” but figured that would be too transparent…
The word “wrongheaded” makes me sneer involuntarily. I saw it in an article in a newspaper years ago and staked my eternal soul on the fact that such a ridiculous word couldn’t possibly exist. It sounds like something Tarzan would make up; “Hmm. Him head think wrong. Him wrongheaded.” Turns out the stupid word really does exist…
I also hate the word “blog,” even though I have one. There’s just something inherently ugly and disgusting about the word that pisses me off every time I hear it; it sounds like Cockney slang for something unsavory (probably sexual) that you’d do to someone else. Thus, I refer to my (ugh…) “blog” as “a stupid fake church.”
Otherwise, I’ve made peace with most of the English language. Just don’t get me going on words people mispronounce that piss me off…
The only time I’ve had an aversion to the word “moist” was when it was used in the same sentence as my anus, coming from a gay man. And, of course, now any time I hear the word I tend to recall that momentary discomfort. Still, it’s not like I can’t just block the image it produces and get on with life.
The only words I know of that I have such aversions to are ones like “moist” that I associate with an experience I have an aversion to.
And I apologize for the “like” thing; I hate it too, even though I do it. I blame it on my sister. I don’t really use it as a filler word so much though. I think I have mostly rid myself of using it in a grammatically-incorrect way; I’m down to contextually-inappropriate. For instance, “I might say, like, ‘that dog is brown’”. Technically, that sentence means “I might say something similar to ‘that dog is brown’”, and is grammatically correct (closer than “umm”, anyway), but probably doesn’t add actual meaning to the message, and might even be redundant depending on the sentence. Similarly, I might say “that jug is like 500 gallons” to mean either “it’s freakin’ huge and might as well be 500 gallons for the purposes of our discussion” or “it’s close enough to 500 gallons that we can assume it’s exactly 500 gallons for the purposes of our discussion”, but sometimes I say that when I really mean “It is exactly 500 gallons”.
(Note however, that I don’t dislike the word “like”, I simply dislike it when it’s used, like, like this.)
As a follow-up, I quizzed my female acquaintances and found that roughly 75% of them acknowledged that the word “moist” did, in fact, creep them out a bit.
The best response I got was, “Well, I never really thought about it before, but now that you mention it… Yeah. Ew,” followed by an involuntary shiver.
See? It’s a mystery.