Worst word in the english language

‘Moist’ – a word apparently despised the world over – is about to be named the worst word in the English language.

The word has emerged as a clear frontrunner in a global survey conducted by Oxford Dictionaries.

English speakers across the globe have been invited to partake in the #OneWordMap initiative in its quest to find the least favourite word.

At the time of writing almost 10,000 people had participated in the global survey, with ‘moist’ so far proving to be the most despised word in the United Kingdom, Australia, United States and Canada.

In contrast, other strong voting nations like the Netherlands, Spain and India have chosen “no”, “hello” and “love” respectively.

Other words that make appearances in the list of the top five least popular words in Australia include “no”, “hate”, “panties” and “like”.

The Oxford University Press team isn’t quite sure what other words will be nominated by survey respondents, but they have a few guesses, spokesman Daniel Braddock told The Guardian.

“We’re really not sure what words people will choose, but our expectation is that they will be fuelled by a multitude of reasons,” he said.

“‘Cancer’, for example, has affected most people in the world, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that make an appearance.

“And there’s a huge amount of commentary in the political field at the moment, so there’s a chance we might see some submissions related to politics.”

This is the first time Oxford Dictionaries has attempted the task of finding the most disliked words in the English language.

“This isn’t something we’ve ever done before but we’re really pleased to finally have it in place. We’re constantly trying to find ways of getting people interested in words and language, and we’re hoping that this will contribute to people’s enthusiasm for the subject,” he said.

Oxford Dictionaries has since removed the map feature from its website “due to severe misuse”.

Our native tongue is beautiful and expressive, even if it’s not technically one of the world’s  Romance languages. English is, by category, a West Germanic language, and German itself is—at least to our ears—a guttural, aggressive array of dense consonant clusters and fricatives and glottal stops. Like our linguistic cousins, we may lack the flowing poetry of Italian or French, but over time English has inherited the entire world; as anyone who watches the annual Scripps-Howard spelling bee knows, our dictionary boasts diverse origins. Language may be the most inclusive aspect of our modern society, in fact, because our adoption of new words is largely unconscious.

I love almost every word, from longer conceptual gems like “transcendence” and “ethereal” to short, blunt instruments of outrage and abuse, like…well, like any four-letter word you can imagine. English is limitless—it can never be mastered, or memorized, but it has endless variety.

If you want to talk about something that happens at sunset, you have a range of words at your disposal, from the simple “dusk” to the mystic “gloaming” to the arcane “crepuscule.” We have words that die, and we have words that are newborn, like Michael Chabon’s “aetataureate” (of or pertaining to a golden age), or Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” (the quality of seeming to be true, even if not actually true). We have words that have been utterly transformed (when was the last time you used “audition” to mean “the power of hearing”?), and we have words that badly need to be revived (I can’t be the only one who wishes cowards were still called “poltroons,” or that a woman who could see the future were a “pythoness”).

In short, we are rich with words, and even the bad ones are great, in their own terrible ways. But there is one exception—a word so misshapen, so awkward, and so ill-suited to its meaning, that it stands out like a cruel anomalous joke in an otherwise perfect system.

That word is “pulchritude.”

As far as I’ve been able to tell, there is no uglier word in the entire English language. Speaking the word aloud is an arduous journey with no reward—your mouth will make the same shape as it does when you’ve tasted a strawberry whose underside was covered with mold. Reading the word is almost as bad, since each of its component syllables is a grisly microcosm of the whole. “Pulk” is a decaying vase of bile in an abandoned cellar. “Krit” is the malodorous black flower that wilts over the edge. “Tyood” is the last corrupted petal, falling to the bare floor, where it will spawn the tree that poisons the earth. 

In a perfect world, “pulchritude” would be a catch-all description for something so obscene, something so far beyond our conception of evil and apocalypse, that it never actually occurred, and therefore the word itself vanished into the mists of history, there to languish for eternity without resurrection.

In our imperfect world, “pulchritude” means physical beauty. Which is proof, as if we needed it, that irony is a monster. 

Originally from Latin, pulchritude first appeared in Middle English in the fifteenth century, and claims offshoots like “pulchrous,” “pulchrify,” “pulchritudinous,” and the gratuitous synonym “pulchritudeness.” It simply will not die—it has lately appeared on TV shows Bones and The West Wing, as well as in an Anne Rice novel, a jazz song, and many syndicated crossword puzzles. Wisconsin basketball player Nigel Hayes used it on Twitter once, which makes it even sweeter that Duke beat his team for the national title in 2015. Coach K wouldn’t be caught dead with that foul word on his lips.

“Pulchritude” as “beauty” is a bad cosmic joke, obviously crafted by a cruel god. Think of everything you’ve ever loved to look upon, from the human form to a breathtaking landscape to a favorite piece of art. Each one of these could be described with the word “pulchritude,” and to me, that’s a small linguistic tragedy.

Ryan ’05 writes for Paste Magazine and is the author of the New York Times bestseller Slaying the Tiger. He lives in Durham with his wife Emily.

Try to make it through this list without losing your lunch.

It’s a fact. Some words were invented just to gross you out. Since I was a kid, there have always been words that totally make my skin crawl. To this day, I can’t have a conversation with someone if they insist on using the word «moist». Upon discussing my list with other «word haters», I’ve narrowed it down to the worst 10 words in the English language. (Excluding certain four letter words, of course).

1) MOIST- Worst.Word.Ever. I have never met a girl who can say this word with a straight face. Everything about this word suggests yucky connotations. I can’t even.

2) TENDER- Ugggh. This one sends shivers down my spine. I especially hate this word when it’s used to describe how a body part feels.

3) PANTIES- Okay, I don’t like this word to begin with, but it becomes 234235 times worse when the speaker leaves the «t» out. (ex pannies) Please, do us a favor, and stick to the generic «underwear».

4) HUN- I’m a pretty even tempered person (most of the time) but call me «Hun» and I will secretly want to punch you in the face. Sorry, not sorry.

 5) PIT- OMG. I’m literally throwing up in my mouth. Please refer to that area of your body as your «underarm». Thanks.

6) OOZE- This word makes me immediately visualize someone who has an infection that needs to be taken care of, STAT!

7) TOOT- I debated including this word because it embarrasses me to even type it. Even worse when «P» is substituted for the «T».

 NURSING- Okay moms, I’m all for you having rights to feed your baby however you want, but please don’t talk to me about it. Ever.

9) BREATH- I think I might be alone on this one, but I hate hearing people describe their breath. Like, I’m shivering now just thinking about it.

10) CREVICE- Only made worst when preceded by the word «Moist».

What’s your least favorite word? Tweet me, @DaniOnUS105!

Now I just bet there’s a lot of competition for this one. Go on, before I get into my rant proper, have a think. What do you think it is? What’s that one word that makes you cringe when you read it in an otherwise perfectly laudable paragraph, or the one that makes you want to use mouthwash after you say it? What’s the word that makes your stomach lurch?

…No, not that word. Honestly. Filthy, filthy minds you all have. Get your head out of the Bumper Book Of Anglo-Saxon Invective and back on the game.

Here’s a few of the usual suspects for you to consider:

• Nice (a pappy word. It’s the one you use when all other adjectives seem far too luxurious. Calling those biscuits “Nice” biscuits can’t have been an accident. They are nice. But that’s it. Nice. They’re not fantastic, like chocolate HobNobs.)
• Squidgey (onomatopoeic, but urrgh and just looks wrong written down)
• Throbbing (yes, I’m looking at you, readers of Fifty Shades of Grey – a series, incidentally, I can neither condemn nor comment upon, as I have not read it and do not intend to. Somehow I don’t think I’m the target audience.)

But this isn’t entirely what I’m on about here – Words, as I’ve mentioned previously, are in themselves neither intrinsically good or intrinsically bad. They’re just words. It’s the emotional spin we as writers, readers or speakers of the language put on them that counts. We have expectations, preconceptions of words, and by association, the people who use them. Do you, for example, find certain accents give you a preconception of what that person is like?

For myself, I will admit that I have an excrutiatingly RP English accent. The Royal Family could hire me to answer their phones. This rather tends to give people the impression that I can only actually swear in parentheses, if at all, and that I might break out in a rash if exposed to Poundland. It makes for some fantastic facial expressions when these people actually spend real time in my company, particularly if I’m in the company of a bottle of rum.

But back to that worst word. Have you thought of yours? It’ll be personal, trust me. I knew someone once (who probably, with my more grown-up knowledge, bordered on synesthetic) who couldn’t abide the word “chalk” because to her just saying it made her feel as if she was biting into a fist-sized lump of the stuff. Tell me about your worst word, because I’m very interested to hear it. And indeed its polar opposite, your favourite word.

Now, the title of this post promised you the worst word in the English language and I wouldn’t want to let you down, so here’s mine to be going on with: “helpless”. You may draw your own conclusions, based on the rest of this rant, as to why it’s my choice.

Addendum: Incidentally, my protracted lack of sharing anything creative lately has been due to Job. (Not the one in the Bible. He had a hard enough time of it as it was, without my blaming him for anything several hundred years later).