Word aversion: Hate moist? Slacks? Crevice? Why do people hate words? - Slate Magazine - 39 views
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sexual connotations that are among the words that elicit this kind of reaction—moist being an obvious one,” he says. “But there are other words like luggage, and pugilist, and hardscrabble, and goose pimple, and squab, and so on, which I guess you could imagine phonic associations between those words and something sexual, but it certainly doesn’t seem obvious.”
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Casey Doyle on 08 Apr 13I feel like some gross words not only have sexual connotations, but also are gross sounding to the ear. For example, two words that I hate are crotch and groin (funny how similar they are!). They both are just awful to say, and seem to get stuck in your throat as you try to choke it out. But, they also have gross connotations! I wonder if they were named with a gross sound because they represent a gross meaning!
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Taylor Brayce on 15 Apr 13I feel that the word that i dislike the most would have to be "B*tch" i just feel like there is so much hate that is put behind the word when said, even when said with a nice tone. There is always the slight tinge of hate put in there. I really enjoy the word " rendezvous" , it nicely flows off the tongue. When i say it, it makes me happy just by the sound. I have noticed that French and Latin words seem to intrigue me the most.
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Jamie s on 18 Apr 13This is so true. I think that people just have sick minds and they take so many things in dirty ways. I dont understand why. I can say something simple and normal but they change it into something sexual.
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Anna Dunham on 19 Apr 13Many people hate or dislike certain words for certain reasons, for some reason it might be connected by the context of the first time we heard that word. Many people don't like the word moist, but I do because it reminds my of the cookies that I saw in the move Cinderella Story, where the mother described them as moist. Maybe because others have not heard this word in such a great context as fresh baked cookies creates it to be unpleasant for them when they hear a certain word.
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Jasmine Baginski on 06 Jun 13I think that prior knowledge and meanings of certain words definitely affect how we perceive words such as "moist" and other words that can also be determined as sexual. Even words that seem to have no connection to sexual meanings can be made sexual with the context in that they are used. People are just weird like that.
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I really like the word lackadaisical because it flows well, it is interesting and quirky. It is a word that looks like and feels like it means the exact opposite of what it does (Lacking enthusiasm and determination). It's a word tha I can't hold in my mind because it doesn't feel right, and I think that there's something beautiful about that. Of course, that's just me rationalizing (the same reasoning does not hold true for the word pulchritudinous, you see)
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pimple
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I think it is really hard for us to separate words from their meanings and I think that, even unintentionally, we will always have some aversion to words whose meaning we dislike or find "gross". I think it would be really interesting to see a study in which the participants did not speak the target language and then judged how attractive sounding the words were. I think the results would be at least somewhat different than those studies done about English words with English speakers, who cannot fully disassociate the meaning from the word. On the other hand, maybe we give gross sounding names to gross things. Maybe our language reflects our preferences, instead of our preferences unfairly classifying our language.
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“Afterwards she said she didn’t mind fu*k, but hated—wait for it—moist. Said it made her a little physically ill. Then I went on to Jackson, read there, and my sister Jane was in the audience—and had the same reaction. To moist.”
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“The word meal makes me wince. Doubly so when paired with hot.”
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When paired up with an adjective a the word meal can become a lot easier to visualize, thus creating an individual to crave this "meal". When we hear words we think of an image to fit with what the other person is telling us. For example, "hot meal" we visualize a nice warm meal, which is very comforting and may cause us to 'wince' because we long for that comfort of this type of meal.
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“The [words] evoke nausea and disgust rather than, say, annoyance or moral outrage. And the disgust response is triggered because the word evokes a highly specific and somewhat unusual association with imagery or a scenario that people would typically find disgusting—but don’t typically associate with the word.”
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I agree with the idea that people tend to associate their preferences with the meaning of words. More info is found on my wordpress: http://awong014.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/word-aversion/
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This is an intriguing article about word aversion - and really links Sense Perception with Language as a WOK. I'd like you all to read it and offer a comment or excerpt with comment. Perhaps you found a particular quote or idea thought-provoking, or you can offer a good question. What words to you feel an aversion to? How do you know?
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Moist is definiately one of the worst words that we have. I find it interesting that we generally find that monosyllable words more detesting than longer multisyllable words. However, I do not think sword is a bad word. Maybe I think this because I cannot disconnect the meaning of the word. To me, a sword represents nobility, honor, and courage, all of which are positive.
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It is very interesting how people dislike certain words just by the way they sound. I know I do it a lot where I will avoid using it or kind of cringe when people say it especially the word moist. I also feel the word moist is highly disliked because of the meaning as well for example when one is walking outside and it lightly starts to rain their clothing could be describes as moist which is a horrible feeling.
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This is a topic that I've actually talked about with my sister several times and I always laugh at how she freaks out in response to certain words. I don't really get bothered by much but she absolutely hates the words moist and puss not for their definitions but for the way that they sound. I can't think of any right now on the spot but I feel like typically the words that make me cringe are repulsive due to their definition rather than sound. I don't really like words that end in -shy like mushy or gushy because they just sound gross to me.
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The article suggests that there are some words that we dislike only because of what they sound like. But can we completely take away the meaning of the word without being influenced by it? It seems unlikely. We consciously or unconsciously connect a sequence of sounds to some image in our head. Even the article itself suggests that we dont like the word 'moist' because we associate it to a sexual situation. Maybe, then, we could ask a foreign person what she thinks of the word 'moist' without knowing its meaning? But still, she could relate it to another sequence of sounds that means something else in her language. We are biased by what we know already. There's nothing wrong with it; but we are.
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Whoa Whoa whoa, whats with all the hate for the word moist. I really don't understand why we hate certain words. I guess i get their reasoning for what the words mean and what they define, but it still weird. Why do we not like words? its completely counter productive for a species to hate the expansion of their own language. well anyways that was my rant. If you haven't guessed by now i dont really have any affiliations with any words, except moist. I like the word moist.
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In this article it discusses the effect that some words have on people and the distaste that they have. It discusses how some words when said by people make them feel uncomfortable. In the article it discusses how the word moist has a negative affects on people because it feels weird to say and has an uncomfortable sound. For me personally, I don't personally get too grossed out by words very often but there are certain ones that do make me cringe. Some of these words include ooze and slush. I positively can't stand those words. For me I personally find it really interesting how certain words affect certain people. My question that I have is whether or not we could train ourselves to cringe to certain words or be okay with certain words? Also I want to know whether certain words would have an affect on us in the same gross way even if we did not know the definition of them.
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It seems to me that many of these words do have meanings we associate with them that make them so repulsive. The article suggests that a lot of these words, "moist" included, have sexual connotations. Phlegm, mucus, and pus are all words with gross meanings. Other words, though it may not be immediately obvious, might have similar sounds to words with gross or sexual meanings, or we might associate them with some unpleasant experience in our past. This word aversion hypothesis should be tested on people who have never heard the word before/have no prior knowledge of its meaning. I think in Spanish the word "crotch" is actually onomatopoeia for a crunching sound so they probably do not have an aversion to the word.
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I think it is weird that we hate words by their sounds. I think that I personally tend to hate words because of their definition, or by the way I perceive it. Honestly when I hear the word moist, I don't hate it, I actually think of moist brownies, which are yummy!! Of course its just my opinion, but i think my point I am trying to get out of here is that I don't think people just hate words because of their sounds, there are also other factors like past experiences/memories and past contexts in which the words were used in
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In the article, when he mentioned that people hate words because of their sight, it made me start thinking about words that I don't like to see when reading. I realized that one thing I dislike the look of in a word is when there are multiple tittles (the dots above Is and Js) in a row. It looks very foreign and unnatural to me. For example, "jiggle". But, the multiple tittles isn't "jiggle"'s biggest problem.
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I agree with "The [words] evoke nausea and disgust rather than, say, annoyance or moral outrage. And the disgust response is triggered because the word evokes a highly specific and somewhat unusual association with imagery or a scenario that people would typically find disgusting-but don't typically associate with the word." There are many words that just look bad. Porcupine would be one of these words that just look bad.
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This article discusses the effect that some words have on people and the distaste that they have towards these certain words. Subconsciously, we as individuals are constantly visualizing images while we have conversations and with each word automatically popping and image into our heads. Some words have negative images connected with them, and as a result could cause one to feel distaste or evoke nausea. For example, the word "vomit" is harsh sounding and automatically puts the image of barf into our minds. Some words when typed seem to look unappealing because of how the letters look together. For example the word "Phlegm" uses letters that just look bad together. As a result, the word phlegm is looked at as unappealing and creepy. There are also negative connotations linked to the word phlegm because of the automatic mental images your mind conjures up.
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"Early in the story, there is a brief passage in which the narrator, describing a moment of postcoital amorousness, says, "Everything seemed moist, permeable, sayable."" I really am in a predicament with this article. I agree and disagree at the same time. I can imagine how we dislike a word, but hating a word is a whole different meaning. When you hate a word, to me, you hate the meaning and definition behind it. When you dislike a word, it seems more so that you dislike the sound of the word and the sayablility of the word. So I dont think its right to hate on the word, for you are hating on the definition behind it. So i feel we should use a less INTENSE word like hate to criticize the sayability of the word. "Being grossed out by the word moist is not beyond comprehension. It's squishy-seeming, and, to some, specifically evocative of genital regions and undergarments." This passage mentions its mainly the SOUND, not the word or definition itself, Which brings clarity to the article.
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I disagree with the premise of this article, which appears to be that some sounds are inherently distasteful. They're distasteful because they remind us of other words. As someone enrolled in french I don't hate certain words because they just sound wrong, I hate them because they're hard to say. My point being that the context of the word is what makes us shudder or cringe. The context for this cringe may not be so obvious. The example this article often cited was "moist", which stand alone the sound moy-st does not appear to be offensive. In a dirty or uncomfortable context it certainly creates an interesting reaction. As a whole I feel like this article is looking into something that isn't all there, but maybe I am just not personally afflicted with 'word aversion'.
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i don't really agree with this article, i don't hate or love any words based just on the way they sound. i like or dislike words based on the meaning. words with sexual connotations we think sound gross but is that because we know the meaning of the word or because the word its self sounds bad. we could just be rating words on how they sound based on their meaning. but one word i do hate more than anything though is Prius something about it gets on my nerves
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The premise of this article was a discussion on the idea of word aversion. "Word aversion is marked by strong reactions triggered by the sound, sight, and sometimes even the thought of certain words." This quote was quite thought provoking as it made me really wonder - what is it that makes a word unpleasant? Is it in fact the sound of the word (how it sounds when it it said), the sight of the word (its formation, how the letters look together), the thought of a certain word (the possibly unpleasant images that it brings to mind), or in fact even a combination? My belief is that in most cases, word aversions can be blamed on the human subconscious and the way in which, whether we like it or not, words are connected to certain images. When reviewing many common word aversions, i really couldn't help but notice that the most common ones are usually those to do with bottily fluids such as mucus, pimple, ooze, scab, pus, phlegm and even moist. This is a point also mentioned within the article.- "Many hated words refer to "slimy things, or gross things, or names for garments worn in potentially sexual areas." This would explain why certain word aversions create feelings of disgust, because when the word is heard, it can subconsciously provoke unpleasant images and experiences connected to that word.
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I personally dont dislike the word moist. People find words gross because of two things and that if it has a bad connotation to it and that makes us connect it to a bad or a gross words either intentionally or subconsciously. The other reason that i think people think some words are nice and others are bad because of the way it sounds. For example words that roll off the toungue easily will ussualy sound niceer than odd sounding words and when there is a mixture of this leaning towards a bad side or a good side that word will come off as such.
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In our society, not only as a national society, but as an international one, words are powerful. Our education systems thrive on words, whether it be the obligatory second language all students are now required to take, or punishment of the improper use of deemed "inappropriate" words, they are none the less, powerful. Some words are titled as beautiful, for me, some of these pretty words are amour, effervescent, enticing, arrivederci, and capricious, however, the list goes on. Now lets take a moment to find some commonalities of these words. All but one of the words begin with a vowel, meaning that the first sound has a softer pronunciation. Two of the five words are from the French and Italian vocabulary. And all of them are two or more syllables. They seem to roll off of the tongue effortlessly. Moist. One of most unappreciated and unliked words in the English dictionary begins with a consonant, is a single syllable, and has a hard ending. So it is possible that the construction of a word, which directly affects the sound of it, plays a huge role on how we categorize pretty and ugly words.
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With words that have sexual connotations you never really know what is going on with the word. You really don't think of the word very much (at least for me) you picture it instead. But for pretty words you also picture them so maybe it isn't about the meaning about the word, it is more about the soundings of the words, the harsh sounds or "fuck" and "crotch" and the smooth sounds of "blue" and "leaves" give you a picture. But when it comes to inappropriate words the harsh sounds really turn off the listener.
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I think that people dislike words because of the definition and the connotations that they get from hearing it. Not from the sound that they make when we say it out loud. For me, it was kind of difficult to come up with words that i like and dislike because of their meanings. So what i am trying to say is that the words sound is not the only thing that can make us like or dislike it; but it depends on our experiences and the definition of the word itself.
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The reason I think that people dislike words is because they usually have an image correlation in their head that they don't particularly like, or because they have a experience that has given a bad connotation to a word this. This correlation people have with words can be intentionally or subconsciously. Because of this people usually choose words that they like or dislike not based on the sound of it but from the image and experience correlation coming from the definition of that word and their experience with it. that is why i don't really agree with this article, i don't hate or love any words based just on the way they sound.
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I personal don't usually get offended by "harsh" or mean words. I feel that people dislike them because of the definition that they are given or an image that goes with the word. Also the sound of the words can be a reason too, some bad words are really bad sounding and are not good to hear. There are many words that i like and most of them are because of the meaning that they have, and there are some words that i just like to day because it is fun too or sounds cool to me.
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Some words just sound disgusting, and that's why some people hate them. Other words just have meanings that are too strong for common communication. Words that people find nice are ones that flow off the tongue naturally and sound good.
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I'm not bothered by a lot of these words as much as some people. But maybe that's because I love to say words like "moist" and "fluid" just to watch people cringe >:D But I do understand why people might be disgusted by certain words. Some, like flegm (I hate this one) sound slimy and squishy. Others, like "bitch" and "cunt" sound sharp and stinging, and they attack the listener.