Favorite and/or least favorite words

[Carly B]

Seeing a post where @TheGecko talked about words she hated made me wonder what words folks here liked or disliked. What
words conjure up strong feelings for you, either in the way they are pronounced or their meanings? Maybe we can all learn some
new, fun words. I have a tendency to love obscure words (most of my working career I was a writer in one form or another),
I always liked ameliorate and it's opposite, exacerbate, and I could occasionally work them into things. The other two words I really
like, pentimento and palimpsest, are sort of similar, but refer to different things, I have never been able to work them into a conversation,
let alone a document. But I like them nonetheless.

There was one word I really HATED when I was younger, but I can't remember what it was. I must have really hated it to remember the
feeling and block it from my memory.

Any words stand out in your mind, either positively or negatively?

 

[AliOop]

OOOoo, I love word games! My family hates it when we do these at baby showers because I always win - because I'm head down over the word puzzle while others are interacting socially.

I love ameliorate and exacerbate, too!! Another favorite: disconcerting. Maybe I have a thing for four- and five-syllable words?

ETA: Comport! I love that word, and it is only two syllables.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

SUCK (covering my ears)

 

[MrsZ]

I have several words I hate, but can't think of them right now! This will be fun to see everyone's responses.

 

[artemis]

I love so many words! I regularly go to etymonline.com just to see where a word comes from.

One of my favorites is tintinnabulation. It just sounds like what it is to me.

When pretending that I don't believe the children, I declare, "Mendacity!" And they respond with, "VERACITY!!!"

 

[Misschief]

I love the "texture" of words (for lack of a better word), the way they feel in the mouth. One that always gets stuck in my head, sometimes for days at a time is Puyallup, a town in Washington state. There's just something pleasing about the way it feels and sounds. Weird, I know.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

It's impossible to talk about words without talking about favorite wordsmiths...

Poe - The Grand Master of onomatopoeia -- words like "tintinnabulation" that sound like what they are describing.

e. e. cummings - known for juxtaposing one word with another to see the subject in a new light...

all ignorance toboggans into know
and trudges up to ignorance again:

 

[Zing]

Ooh- what a great post -- thank you!

The first thing that comes to mind is some people's names that I love to say out loud. Of course, my children's names, Levi Casmir (my grandfather's grandfather was named Levi) and Noah Scott who we frequently call Noah Kaboah. It took us a loooong time to pick out our sons' names. We never had a daughter but had a name picked out -- Audrey Ruth, Audrey for my mom who died waaaaay too young, and when I was waaay too young.. Our Noah Scott was named for my mom whose maiden name was Scott (and now you know my security phrase!)

A work colleague's name is Abdikhaliq. And growing up I knew a Caira MacAdara.

And I like the Spanish word for fireman which is bombero.

And I like the word ' kudos.' At work, I have a report with a section for kudos to call out who has gone above and beyond. My staff are always hoping that they make it into my kudos column!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

an all-time favorite: THIMK!

 

[Zing]

Also "Minnehaha," my home county. My home town is Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the county of Minnehaha. The city is built around a river water fall. Minne means water, haha means laughter -- so the Dakota translation of water fall is 'laughing water' -- isn't that totally apt?!

 

[TheGecko]

Seeing a post where @TheGecko talked about words she hated made me wonder what words folks here liked or disliked. What
words conjure up strong feelings for you, either in the way they are pronounced or their meanings? Maybe we can all learn some
new, fun words. I have a tendency to love obscure words (most of my working career I was a writer in one form or another),
I always liked ameliorate and it's opposite, exacerbate, and I could occasionally work them into things. The other two words I really
like, pentimento and palimpsest, are sort of similar, but refer to different things, I have never been able to work them into a conversation,
let alone a document. But I like them nonetheless.

There was one word I really HATED when I was younger, but I can't remember what it was. I must have really hated it to remember the
feeling and block it from my memory.

Any words stand out in your mind, either positively or negatively?

It’s not that I ‘hate’ them per se, I just dislike them a great deal.

I dislike “inclusive” because 1) I don’t think everyone needs to be included all the time and 2) it’s often used to exclude.

“Social distancing” needlessly isolated people…you can be physically distant and still be social.

“Social justice” is a just a feel-good phase, and an excuse for a lot of people to be jerks.

“Diversity”. It’s supposed to be ‘inclusive’, but it does the opposite. Our local community college has become so ‘diverse’ that enrollment has dropped. A lot of folks are afraid to say anything that isn’t ‘politically correct’ or they get reported to the diversity police.

“Disproportionate” is another one of those politically correct words.

“Jiggy” is just stupid.

Edited to correct the misspelling of Jiggy.

 

[Misschief]

“Jiggly” is just stupid.

I love this! And you're right.

 

[artemis]

Ooh- what a great post -- thank you!

The first thing that comes to mind is some people's names that I love to say out loud.

My grandmother liked to tell the story of the boy who had a crush on her when she was quite young. He gave her a little wooden hinged box. To this day I have "Walter McAmish's box" on the shelf. What a great name.

Terry Pratchett had a knack for character names. I always loved Ponder Stebbins and secretly wish I'd named one of the boys "Ponder."

Certain of my kids' mispronunciations stick with me.
Ubba: umbrella
Mogozygo: motorcycle
Fire digengin: fire engine
My mother, when she was very small, would go visit her mother working at the "po poshes," or post office.

 

[user 56151]

I had a friend and her name was Daphne Featherstonehaugh. I used to love to say it, most people just said Featherstone. I also like to use the word pugnacious. There are just too many words I don’t like to list, not so much the words but the way people pronounce them.

 

[AliOop]

Pugnacious is great! I also like conciliatory.

 

[MrsZ]

Thinking of this thread woke me up in the middle of the night last night! I really like the sound of the word loquacious. I thought of another, but it's gone again this morning.

Words I really don't like:
Disseminate. I know what it means, but it just sounds wrong to me.
"Imma", "finna", "supposably", "moist", "veggies". I know I'm strange, nobody take offense please!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Names: My neighbor, Phyllis, married David Willis. She is now Phyllis Willis!

Minnehaha

Reminds me of Lakes that are fun to say -- Titicaca and Okeboji

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Two unusual words that I first learned when I went to graduate school are depauperate and stochastic. I’m not particularly fond of either but I still remember exactly when I first heard/read each of them.

As a graduate student, I spent many, many hours sorting and identifying marine invertebrates for biodiversity studies. I always enjoyed learning the origins of the scientific names of the different species I encountered.

Arabella iricolor - an iridescent worm possibly named after a granddaughter of a king of Scotland
Loimia medusa - commonly known as the medusa or spaghetti worm due to the mass of feeding tentacles on its head
Chaetopterus variopedatus - a worm with different types of hairy winglike “feet”
Macoma balthica - a burrowing clam first identified in the Baltic Sea. Macoma is thought to be a combination two words. Ma, a goddess from Kappadocian in present day Turkey and the Greek word koma, meaning deep sleep, coma and hair. The Latin balthica means baltic.
Callinectes sapidus - the scientific name of this delicious blue swimming crab comes from the Greek words for beautiful swimmer and the Latin word for savory.

 

[Ephemerella]

I love words with a mouthfeel too, generally culinary words, like couscous, umami, and chiffonade.

In my professional life, I generally can work ameliorate, ruminate, and morass into a dialogue, which are just so much fun.

In my soapy life, emulsification is such a fun word! So is saponification! Even tossing around super-fatting is a fun to say, especially to those who have no idea what you're talking about.

And, nerdy me... whenever I pour my castor oil, I can't help mumble-singing Metallica "Castor, Castor! Castor of puppets I'm pulling your strings...." Ha so nerdy

 

[Zing]

More favorites: Lake Okoboji

Saponification, bergamot (and up until recently I pronounced the t!). I will say that Mrs. Zing was really caught off guard the first time I said "I'm going to go masterbatch."

Our kids called Corned Beef Hash 'tosh' and 'coffee cash.'

Tusen Takk. Uff da -- perfectly captures a feeling.