today zmjezhd noodles (south of the border) regarding Likes and dislikes of languages and, relatedly, specific words. we've not had a thread here on the latter for a while, and it's always fun to see what words rankle the aesthetics of others.

my own personal distastes run to aberrations such as orientate and conversate. how about you?

There are real words that I dislike. I always thought "succumb" an unfortunate construction, ugly in both the visual and aural parameters. And I mourn the loss of the helpful diacritical mark that prompts the otherwise uninformed (myself among them, occasionally) to say "co-operate" instead of "coop-erate" and (particularly) "zo-ology" instead of the practically universal "zoo-ology."

I like words that by the look of them seem to have no connection with or even to be the opposite of what they mean, like:
'contumacious' (stubbornly resistant to authority). If you don't know it it seems a plaisant and complying word.

Sorry, can't think of any I particularly don't like right now. Maybe tomorrow.

I don't like murmur. Those urs are just ugly sounds.

I've never much liked epicaricacy. You can google the reasons.

I never much liked "fart" or "snot". so much that I invented(or appropriated) new words when my boys were young, "whiff" and "snoofer", which I suppose, aren't much better, but they were to me! now, I'm afraid my lovely wife has gotten me to accept (and even say sometimes! heaven forfend!) fart....

and I'm not sure what words my boys use now....

I also have never liked "pshaw!" as an exclamation. I've never heard it pronounced authoritatively - maybe because it doesn't recreate in writing anything that people actually say, even when sputtering. I get the "psh" part, but the "aw" ruins it for me. They should have stopped at the psh.

I know, also, that there are a couple I don't care for, but
having trouble remembering at the present. But the texting
world has contributed a phrase-thing I absolutely
despise: lol. For me it is "loser on the Loose".

Wilfred J Funk's (1932) list of ten most beautiful words in English: dawn, hush, lullaby, murmuring, tranquil, mist, luminous, chimes, golden, and melody. Ring Lardner's list of ten most beautiful words in English: gangrene, flit, scram, mange, wretch, smoot with a small ‘s’, guzzle, McNaboe, blute, crene. A blute being a smoker who doesn’t inhale, and a crene a man who inhales but doesn’t smoke.

I had a professor at college who used to admonish us not to confuse a symbol with its meaning. He used to say: These lists are just a nuisance.

High School students I used to teach, a few years back,
had a couple, chode and dingleberry. Images notwithstanding
I don't care for them.

I think I dislike specific; specimen is OK, but it's the f in specific that kills the word. Must be an ordeal for people with a lisp or a stammer.

chode

This is a standard expletive in Hindi (and possibly other Indo-Aryan languages).

I thinked and I thunk and couln't come up with a word that stunk.

Anything that starts with schm- or schl-. These are just ugly sounds.

chode is also seen as choad in English, with an off-color, anatomical meaning. I first heard it about 20 years ago, it having been absent from my sheltered, youthful years.

And just how does a crene inhale without smoking? That's quite a feat, assuming "inhaling" means "inhaling smoke," as the juxtaposed words suggest.

And just how does a crene inhale without smoking? By being next to someone who is? BTW, I took a look at your latest onamography post. ARGH! [still working e]

Chode is definitely off-color.


A word I am sick and tired of hearing is "empower".

Are there any English words starting with these?
I only know of German words. ( in fact only negative words 'schmeicheln, schmutzig, du Schlange' (not personal) )

Are there any English words starting with these?

Only those of Yiddish origin: e.g., schmuck, schnook, schlimazel, schlub. They can also be spelled without the c.

So not very very English, but do we need to restrict the disliked words to our own language? Could schlimazel have the same meaning as schlemiel? ( someone who's not very interesting)
(local Yiddish)

So not very very English

I'd say that schtick (shtik), schmuck (shmok) and putz (potz) are just as English as mousse, yacht, and borscht. A schlemazil is somebody back luck is always happening to. May be from shlim mazel, lit. 'bad luck' in Yiddish. Might not be.

schtick (shtik), schmuck (shmok) and putz (potz) I never, EVER, hear those words in personal conversations. Provincial, yeah, I know.

You never hear them in Louisville, Kentucky? Amazing!

Maybe I should develop new friends...?

Just watch television! Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hassenpfeffer Incorporated!

I think I don't like longer words (unlike "try," "by," "cry" and the like) that only have "y" as the vowel: glyph, crypt, zyzygy. Ick.

A schlemazil is somebody back luck is always happening to. May be from shlim mazel, lit.

I'd say you are right about them being English. I forgot the real meaning of this word. I didn't hear 'schlemiel' spoken since I left hometown Rotterdam.

I'm with Jackie for not liking words that start with a whole load of consonants.

never, EVER, hear those words in personal conversations. Provincial, yeah, I know.

There is a whole nose-load of words I never hear in conversation, yet I know them. Snooty, yeah, I know, but they are in my lexicon.

I'm with Jackie for not liking words that start with a whole load of consonants.

Yeah, but schmuck and schlemazel don't start with any more consonants than smack or slip? Sorry.

They do,they do. You dont pronounce smuk and slemazel, do you?

You dont pronounce smuk and slemazel, do you?

I pronounce them /'ʃmʌk/ and /ʃlɪ'mɑzəl/. (See the chart for the mapping of IPA to English dialect sounds for a key to my pronunciation.)

No, they don't. Whether you say /smʌk/ or /ʃmʌk/, the word begins with 2 consonants either way.

Hindi चोदना codanā "to have sexual intercourse with (of a man)"

Schl.Schm. Don't know what you call these, we call all four of them consonants.

they appear to be talking sounds, just like they do when they talk about multiple vowels strung together as one dipthongish vowel.
-joe (but I know what I don't know) friday

Don't know what you call these, we call all four of them consonants.

goofy is making a distinction between the actual sounds (phonemes) of English and their written representation. Some languages go for a one-to-correspondence between these two things, and others go for a many-to-one or one-to-many.

For example, the single sound represented by the IPA symbol /ʃ/ is normally written in English as {sh} and in German as {sch}, but Czech gets away with a single letter {š}. IPA ʒ can be a single symbol as in English garage or French je 'I', but two in Hungarian {zs]as in rozsa 'rose'. OTOH, IPA /ju/, which are two sounds, is a single letter in English human.

So you're complaining about the spelling. So spell them shl and shm - problem solved.

Interesting. It deals with feces and excrement among the young
people I know. Different strokes for different folks.

No complaints at all; its just slightly growing over my head.
Anyway @stuwm : I think the cleverest thing on earth is (to know what you don't know). How do you do that?

just like in real estate, it's all about location - hanging around with linguists, I know that I don't know beans about linguistics.

I also know what I don't know and I bet that I don't know more than you don't know about linguistics!

The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. The less you know, the less you forget. So why study?

So, you're saying that if you don't know more about linguistics than someone else doesn't know you actually know more because you've forgotten less?

The trick is to know just enough about something to be dangerous.

So why study?

10 The more you work, the older you get.
20 The older you get the less money you have.
30 The less money you have, the more you work.
40 If you're too old then retire (i.e., goto 60);
50 Else study (i.e., exit).
60 Nos habuit humus.

70?

70?

70 Finis.

Since this reply, whenever I look at the 'active topics' page I read the topic title as "last favorite words" all the time.

This is what I want on my tombstone:
"I told you I was sick".

I have a cast of an old tombstone bearing that very epitaph hanging on the wall of my office at work. The name is obscured, but the sentiment is perfectly legible.

My country is too small to have any more tombstones and my favorite last words will depend on the moment.
Could be anything.

60 Nos habuit humus.

Gack! Must be getting close to the end of my program. That should be habebit.

Habuit or habebit, so the ground will have it.