word aversion

[aroraborealis]

Do you have any word aversions?

I have one: "pit" (but only when describing holes or hole-like areas (armpit, tree pit, etc, not, say, when describing the stones in fruit).

Comments

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

"Crotch" and "horny" come to mind.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Yes. :)

[dbang.livejournal.com]

"fart". Hate it.

[eestiplika.livejournal.com]

"Moist" and "Slacks"

I'm trying to desensitize myself to the first one, because how else do you describe the texture of a good cake in English?

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

"Sac". I can't stand it!

[dpolicar]

Hm.
I have trouble answering this question.

I mean, presumably you don't intend to count words that are generally understood to be epithets... I have trouble with "faggot" or "kike", for example, but I assume that doesn't count.

Moving towards the more idiosyncratic... hm. "Putative" always shocks me a little, presumably because of the Spanish.

I'll echo "fart", also.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I still hate the word "blog". I try to stick with "weblog" but sometimes I just give in.

[sweetbaboo.livejournal.com]

"catheter"

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my kids lately have been using the word "weenie" to refer to their penises. I hate hate hate it. Hate it referring to frankfurters, too. I guess I hate all uses of "weenie" except those that refer (pejoratively) to people.

[cinnabarine.livejournal.com]

"Crisis," "typical," and "hate."

Mostly because of hearing them get severely overused to the point of losing their meaning.

Most other words that people dislike tend to rank among my favorites. Especially dirty, gross, or overly graphic words. And combinations thereof. Such as "pussypanties."

What? Go ahead, say it out loud. Make sure you purse your lips. It'll totally brighten your day.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Oh, there are also words I hate in their written form, even though they are fine spoken, such as:
medieval
skeptic (that 'k' is wrong!)
any word with a (pronounced) "gh" like "yoghurt"

*cringe*

It's all about the context

[drwex]

For example I loathe the use of the term "junk" to refer to mens' genitalia. If there's one part of my body that is not junk? It'd be that.

I dislike "irony/ironic" because they get used by people who wouldn't know irony if it bit them on the ass, which it usually does. Schadenfreude, now? That's an awesome word.

Unique is up on my hate list because people seem to have no idea what it means and thus produce phrases like "more unique". Conversely, sui generis is just awesome and is almost never used except it was used last night by an NPR reporter in describing Ted Kennedy and I liked that.

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

Synergy.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

I may have developed a few new word aversions just by reading the comments on this post.

[pumpkin-pi.livejournal.com]

meteoric

[goat.livejournal.com]

"peeve", especially in combination with "pet".

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

No comment on this. I just want to let you know that I get "The Straight Dope" as a friends' list feed, and in my friends' page view, was this:

The Straight Dope: When's the best time to see the arora borealis?

Aroraborealis: [this post]

[keyne.livejournal.com]

As a kid I couldn't stand the word "gorgeous", which made me think of gorges, in a bad way. (I use it now, though.)

I still cannot handle anything with the cutesy ending "-poo" (as in Witchiepoo, from H.R. Pufnstuf), because of childhood verbal abuse. :/

And like mzrowan, I still wince when I hear my childhood name spoken aloud, even when it's referring to someone else.