Bad Words

“Word aversion”—the phenomenon of feeling repugnance toward certain words, not necessarily connected to their meaning, was the topic of a recent New York Times article. Studies have been done at Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago to try to determine what causes this reaction. So far the results are inconclusive.

The Times asked its readers to submit words which repulsed them, and the most frequently disgusting word was moist. Despite its positive associations with such things as chocolate cake and fertile soil, moist also apparently makes people think of bodily fluids. Similar connections with sexual, excretory, or other bodily functions no doubt account for the loathing of such words as groin, crotch, belly, flesh, flabby, tummy, turd, pimple, plaque, pustule, piehole, fart, flatulence, discharge, panties, douche, brassiere, and bosom.

Less easy to explain is the aversion reported by readers to gulp, gargle, grunt, groan, and gasp. The infantile silliness of such words as hubby, tummy, and yummy provides a rationale for their unpopularity.

But I’m stumped when I try to think of what might cause aversion to husband, fiduciary, crucial, whoosh, unguent, orchards, pulchritude, charcuterie, lugubrious, placate, cornucopia, fudge, squab, meal, and velvet, all of which received multiple thumbs-down from Times readers.

Readers of the verses of the Bard of Buffalo Bayou have reported aversions to every word he uses, including “and” and “the.” 

            A most fastidious Persian
            Suffered extreme word aversion,
                        His vocabulary
                        Offered up nary
            A word that escaped his aspersion.

Moist on Its Own Petard

Word aversion, the subject of much linguistic study, is a phobic reaction to the sound of certain words. The seemingly innocuous moist is one of the words that people find most unpleasant.  A survey at Mississippi State University found that moist was second only to vomit among detested words, ahead of such other nasties as phlegm, ooze, mucus, puke, scab, and pus. There is even a moist-hating Facebook page with nearly 8,000 “friends.”  

Reasons given for hating moist relate to words and ideas that it evokes.  Some people say it makes them think of “squishy” and “slimy.”  Others say it elicits thoughts of soiled underwear, sweaty palms, or other body parts dampened by various secretions.  Some say it conjures up unpalatable food. In urban slang moist can be a synonym for “embarrassing,” “unpleasant,” or “sexually aroused.”

This aversion might be explained by competing theories of the etymology of moist.  A fourteenth-century word meaning “slightly wet,” it derives from the Old French moiste, meaning “damp, wet, or soaked.”  One school says its Latin root is musteum, meaning “fresh, green, or new.”  But another linguistic camp thinks it stems from the Latin mucidus, which means “slimy, moldy, or musty.”

As for me, I am a great fan of moist—especially in a slice of rich, moist chocolate cake or in an ice-cold, straight-up dry martini with beads of lovely moisture condensing on the outside of the glass.

As for the Bard of Buffalo Bayou, he is all wet.

            Water, water, everywhere,

            It’s all I have to drink.

            A taste of plain vin-ordinaire

            Would put me in the pink.

            I wish I had a mug of beer—

            I hear the glasses clink,

            But my beverage is pure and clear,

            Straight from the kitchen sink.

            A shot of bourbon, scotch, or gin

            Would iron out every kink,

            I’ll even bet a Mickey Finn

            Would taste real good (wink, wink),

            There’s not a drop of Chardonnay

            Or cognac here to drink—           

            I wonder if ‘twould be okay

            If I tried a glass of ink?