Hey everyone!
Despite what the title suggests, I’m not breaking up with you. I love everyone who visits my blog. Both of you.
Today I want to talk to you about certain words that people find displeasing to the human ear. Seriously. A couple of weeks ago, I was reading THIS article from Slate. The gist is that there are words out there that people tend to avoid because they simply don’t like the way it sounds. The article champions the word “moist” being one of the worst offenders (though personally the word doesn’t bother me NEARLY as much as the word “overwhelm”) I thought it was fascinating that for whatever reason–whether it was the spelling, the sound, or the mental images that accompany the offending word in question–there are some folks that will go out of their way to avoid them.
I don’t have many words myself, save for the aforementioned “overwhelm” or “backpack” (when referring to a bookbag), but I’ve heard stories of people avoiding words like “slush,” “earshot,” “peculiar,” “nomenclature,” and “nipple.”
Maybe I’m in the odd lot, but there’s actually words I like the sound of, (again due to the sound and/or mental images provoked). For me, I am in love with the word, “city.” No idea where it came from, as I admit it was a recent discovery, but I have a preference to use that word over “metropolis,” “town,” or “incredibly large village.” Although a media search on the word the word for this article yielded:
This MTV show and this hilariously “So 90s but ironically cool twenty years later” video for the soap opera of the same name:
What about you? Are there words you “reject.” What about ones you love?
–Flobo
Flobo Boyce 