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

Re: It's all about the context

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

Unique is up on my hate list because people seem to have no idea what it means

Unless you believe there is some magical place out in the ether where word meanings reside, this is a hard statement to support. A word means what people think it means. And it might upset you that the word no longer means what it used to and what you'd like it to mean, but, alas, unique has moved on. As has peruse. Language is a cruel mistress.

Re: It's all about the context

[drwex]

By the same token so has "junk" and any other word in common parlance.

I'm aware that Humpty Dumpty rules the day, but the question was about words that annoy me. And here and there some of the evolutions of language use annoy me. As noted above.

Re: It's all about the context

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

I know that the point was what words annoy and I'm not questioning the fact that the "u word" puts your teeth on edge since it's similar to how "plethora" annoys me in student papers. All I'm saying is that people's use of it can't be wrong if that's what people feel that it means.