Kayla Gately
The damp doily gushed secretion moistly.
Did that sentence make you want to slam your laptop shut or turn your phone off? Well, the good news is you’re not alone. All of those words are considered some of the “most hated” in the English language.
Word aversion, the repulsed feeling you get when you read the sentence above, is pretty common and includes a long list of weird words. Read on to find out why we all hate the word moist… if you dare.
Why do people hate certain words?
Word aversion is actually more akin to a phobia than anything else. According to University of Chicago linguistics professor Jason Riggle, the aversion to certain words has more to do with feelings of disgust and nausea associated with the word rather than annoyance.
“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,” said Riggle.
Riggle, along with neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman, believes that the sound of the words themselves is what causes the aversion. Dr. Eagleman even conducted experiments where he made up his own words and found people were not for unusual sound combinations.
So, if a word sounds wrong, people are more likely to associate it with something bad or gross.
What words are the most hated?
Moist (sorry) is one of the most infamously hated words— It’s even had a cameo in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. In fact, Riggle said the widespread hatred of the word moist has even made it harder to grasp a broader understanding of word aversion.
Although, there is a list of words that people seem to agree have the same effect as moist. Some of these words are:
- Clogged
- Fester
- Phlegm
- Slurp
- Smear
- Yolk
Gross. That wasn’t one of them, but the word aversion is starting to have an effect on me.
Why do hated words vary from person to person?
While the sounds of certain words definitely cause a bad reaction, associations with certain words can cause aversion, too. It’s not too crazy to think that some people might not like the word “roaches” (one of the words on the hate list) because of a pre-existing phobia of bugs.
I personally hate the word “cusp,” because of the way it sounds. It may just be that different people are repulsed by different sound combinations.
What weird words make your skin crawl?
