Anyone have a list of words that you can barely stand to hear uttered? A friend from college nearly goes into seizures when she hears the "oi" dipthong... needless to say, a group of us took it upon ourselves to torture her by repeating the phrase "moist oily boil wrapped in aluminum foil".
I have trouble with the words "dollop" and "youngster". Is this a shared neurosis, and if so, is there a word to describe this disorder?
Welcome Fibrebabe
I absolutely loathe the ubiquitous f*ck - not simply because its usage has degenerated from earthy to vulgar, but because it sounds ugly. It is used in a variety of hateful ways that degrade the basic meaning of the word, and the sound of it is the sound of fingernails across a blackboard, for me.
f*ck
I have to disagree Max, I think of it as a nice, crisp, succinct word.
Since having our thread on the word, I don't really like hearing discombobulated. Coming from people my age it sounds like they're stupid trying to sound intelligent.
Max wrote: I absolutely loathe the ubiquitous f*ck and then wrote It is used in a variety of hateful ways that degrade the basic meaning of the word,
and I couldn't agree more. To me it also degrades the person who uses it as a casual profanity. (Including myself)
{insert ashamed of herself blushing emoticon here}
Just seems to me that one should first learn to use the language before venturing on to the Dark Side ... but then if one truly knows the language ....
wow
the ubiquitous Monty Python lads covered this with their woody and tinny words (of which woody and tinny are examples thereof) -- I'm sure there is a link buried in the archives.
The interesting thing about the "F" word (don't you just love the convolutions we go through to get around four little letters?) is that (a) it
is entirely ubiquitous these days, and (b) it has actually lost its original meaning in most usage. "F*ck me!" is a common expression in Ozkiwitralasia (is that a valid neologism?), yet there are no sexual connotations intended by it or taken from it.
It is also no longer the sole domain of the rougher kind of male. I must admit, though, that I'm still coming to terms with women of good education (and presumably upbringing) telling others to "F*ck off" or "Get f*cked" without even breaking stride or considering it in any way out of the ordinary. Because, of course, it isn't out of the ordinary these days, far from it. I even heard my dear old Mum use it once when she managed to put her finger between the foot and base plate of her sewing machine and thereby stitch her finger to the fabric she was sewing ... which rocked me back on my heels more than the actual accident, which was messy enough! And she would have been older than WOW if she wasn't dead at the moment.
I think you can dislike it, but you're never going to get rid of it. I guess that in fifty years' time a board like ours will be discussing its etymology!
The word "pain" itself does that to me.
(Trapped between quotes it has less effect though)
Capital Kiwi stated
I think you can dislike it, but you're never going to get rid of it. I guess that in fifty years' time a board like ours will be discussing its etymology! Agreed. This thread is one that I feel very comfortable contributing to, due to its entirely subjective nature. The original post asked about words that inflict excruciating pain, and that one does for me. I have no intention of launching a campaign against the word, any more than against prioritise, which I hate with equal vehemence. Unschooled as I am, aesthetics, or my sense thereof, is the guiding force behind my use of language, and both those words are quite unbearably ugly to me.
"F*ck me!" is a common expression - - - - yet there are no sexual connotations intended by it or taken from itI don't entirely agree with that. Over here, the equaly common expression of surprise/dismay, "F*ckin' Hell!!" is often greeted with the reply, " I certainly hope they do!"
"F*ckin' Hell!!" is often greeted with the reply, " I certainly hope they do!"Which just goes to reinforce my comments on belief systems and updating them elsewhere!
>The interesting thing about the "F" word (don't you just love the convolutions we go through to get around four little letters?)
I'm pretty sure that we are not "allowed" to post this word by HAL, our trusty computer. I'll just check it out ...fuck
> I'll just check it out ...f***
Wrong again. Big brother must have gone for a nap!
Funny, it has been a couple of hours since my **** post and I still haven't been hit with any excruciating pain.
jmh gloated
Funny, it has been a couple of hours since my **** post and I still haven't been hit with any excruciating pain.Meanwhile, my eyes are still burning, and I haven't been able to stop retching since!
>Meanwhile, my eyes are still burning, and I haven't been able to stop retching since!
It just goes to show the power of a word, doesn't it? Strange how a combination of curved and straight lines can have such an effect.
I wonder if there is an antidote?
I wonder if there is an antidote?
There is, kcuf. I think it's Klingon, ask Jackie for a translation ...
There is, kcuf. I think it's Klingon, ask Jackie for a translation ...
C'mere a minute, buddy, and I'll "translate" you!
In reply to:
It just goes to show the power of a word, doesn't it? Strange how a combination of curved and straight lines can have such an effect.
What intrigues me is the impact that context has on making a word acceptable or unacceptable. As much as I loathe "fuck" (see, I can type it!), I am very comfortable using the correct pronunciation of the Maori "whaka", an extremely common element in Maori places names, and which, when said properly sounds just like "fuck a". I guess it's the vulgarity, paucity of imagination, and aggression so often displayed in the use of the Anglo-Saxon version that offends me, that makes it sound so ugly.
Soooo ... d'y'wanna do Maori obscenties instead? (He asked dubiously, eyeing his politically-correct-and-therefore-almost-completely-but-not-exactly-useless Maori dictionary).
Beside, where I come from it's more like "farka" than "fucka".
Funny, it has been a couple of hours since my **** post and I still haven't been hit with any excruciating pain.Windows is formatting your hard disk.
Please wait...
Anna. Yes, I know that Macs are immune from curses of any kind.
>Windows is formatting your hard disk.
Please wait...
Aaaargh
Do you think that maybe the computer equivalent of "Wash your mouth out with soap!"
Do you think that maybe the computer equivalent of "Wash your mouth out with soap!"
Maybe,
But I've achieved greater success by threatening my children with jalapeños.
Juan Maria.
In reply to:
But I've achieved greater success by threatening my children with jalapeños.
Hmm, for my Dad, that would be a bribe, not a threat.
"And she would have been older than WOW ."
Capital Kiwi, I think that the phrase which will be the subject of etymological speculation in fifty years is the one you just coined. "Older than wow": what a great expression. It will leave the same mystified look on my younger listeners that "gone like pong" does now.
re 'that' word
Although a frequent user of it (too long in the bush with drillers - one only needed a 2 word vocabulary - will leave it up to you to guess the other one) I refuse to put it into print. How's that for double standards!!
Remember those funny faxes we all used to get at work before email was invented? Dja ever see the one that gave examples of ALL the different ways the word could be used (ie wonder, incredulity, anger, loving etc). I remember just about busting myself larfin. (I'm ashamed to say that the only one I can remember was incredulity - the Lord Mayor of Hiroshima - "What the f* was THAT?"
stales
one only needed a 2 word vocabulary - will leave it up to you to guess the other one) I refuse to put it into print. When I worked on cray boats on the west coast, the most common expression was an invitation to take up a new occupation involving sex and travel ...
I really hate the word "pot pourri" (I'm not sure I even know how to spell it). And I don't much care for pot pourri itself. I also dislike the word "veritable," and unfortunately folks will occasionally mention "a veritable pot pourri" and I subsequently have to be hospitalized for weeks at a time.
WARNING - Potentially controversial! Be aware I am anti the phrase, not the nationality!
A friend from college nearly goes into seizures when she hears the "oi" dipthong...
This brings to mind immediately the warcry of the home team in the Olympics 'Aussie Aussie Aussie - oi oi oi!' As a non-native living in Sydney, this makes me cringe internally.
'Oi' is to me such an ugly exclamation, conjuring up images of angry, incoherent red-faced men who can't be bothered to remember your name but need your attention this very minute for something which is important to them but you know nothing at all about and have nothing to do with anyway. (yes, I have two particular men in mind!)
I suspect I have stronger mental associations than many, but still I can't understand why Australians would want their country to be associated with such a yobbish chant.
I refuse to pronounce "renege" as everyone else does.
The best sound a word ever makes is when "public" is spoken. It sounds like a video game or something from the mouth of Qbert.
Someone, sometime, somewhere said the most euphonious phrase in English is "cellar door."
Say it aloud several times, it is really pretty in American.
How does it sound with English, Aussie, Zild accent? Nice perchance?
OTOH, say uncle or Ithica several times, aloud, and they sound really dorky
wow
Say it aloud several times, it is really pretty in American.
How does it sound with English, Aussie, Zild accent?
um... wow... *everything* sounds nice in an english or aussie accent [swooning emoticon]
bridget=)
Ipsa scientia potestas est ~Bacon
In reply to:
Someone, sometime, somewhere said the most euphonious phrase in English is "cellar door."
Euphonious is not a word many would use to describe "Zild", but for me, "the cheque's in the mail" is even more euphonious than "cellar door."
Hi guys, I've been away awhile and I see that this thread has moved off of the "F" word, BUT I can't resist. I am a volunteer firefighter and one morning at a fire scene,(about 4:00 AM), when a piece of equipment broke, I heard the best use of the word F*ck that I have ever come across and I challenge you guys to top this one! The firefighter in question said, and this IS a direct quote: "The fuckin' fucker is fucked!" It absolutely said it all!
Cheers!
Poster: Max Quordlepleen : for me, "the cheque's in the mail" is even more euphonious than "cellar door."
For me, the check is in the mail causes a sinking sensation in the abdominal regions.
wow
Wow, I recall hearing that same factoid, with the addition in one version that a non-English speaking immigrant couple named their daughter "Cellardoor" because they liked the sound.
On a related note, when I was very small I named one of my dolls "Kerosene." My parents thought it was hilarious, but I like the sound of the word.
There's a nightclub in Washington, DC called The Cellar Door. It was supposedley named for the phrase's aforementioned euphonia.
Euphonia? Euphonic characteristics? 'Cuz it sounded good? You get the picture.
Doug:
OHMIGAWD. The memories THAT brings back. The Cellar Door was (perhaps still is) a place in Georgetown where we newly-graduated 18-year-olds went to have our first legal beer. It was literally in the basement of a building, and was the place where many a musical career got started. I saw PP&M there before they became world famous. Same for Aretha Franklin.
I always assumed it was named Cellar Door because it was in a cellar.
Ted
Doll named Kerosene
This is a true story, so help me God. When my wife was in nurse's training and doing her rotation thru OB/GYN, she met a new mother, a primipara (there's glory for you!), who named one of her twin girls Siphyllis (accent on 2nd syllable) because she thought it sounded so beautiful. The other? Gonnoriya, of course.
who named one of her twin girls Siphyllis (accent on 2nd syllable) because she thought it sounded so beautiful. The other? Gonnoriya, of courseI could forgive the names, but not the spelling. Clap! Clap!
Thanks for that reminder, Mr B - chimes very usefully with something I am working on, and I had completely forgotten that thread - suspect it may be of interest to some of the new voices too.
a primipara (there's glory for you!), who named one of her twin girls Siphyllis (accent on 2nd syllable) because she thought it sounded so beautiful. The other? Gonnoriya, of course.
A friend of mine knows a little girl who was named Chlamydia for its euphony, rather than its glorious associations. What is with all the lovely names for venereal diseases?
To resurrect this thread, I have to add "painterly" to the list. I first heard it when flipping through the PBS channels a couple years ago, and stopped on a teach-anyone-to-paint program. The painter (I hesitate to say artist) described making a "painterly" sky. Since then, I've been hearing it more often, usually as a synonym for "beautiful" or to describe a scene as being worthy of a painting. It doesn't sound right! If it is in the current dictionaries, I'll choke.
I could really rant, but I don't want to seem rabid... this is only my second post.
Ali
hope you saved your airsickness bag from your last flight!
painterly is a fine old word, here's the whole OED screed:
a. Like, or pertaining to, a painter; characteristic of a painter, artistic; spec. of a style of painting, characterized by qualities of colour, stroke, and texture rather than of contour or line. Also transf. b. adv. In a way proper to a painter, artistically. rare.
a1586 Sidney Arcadia i. (1590) 55 It was a very white and red vertue, which you could pick out of a painterly glosse of a visage. 1822 T. G. Wainewright Ess. & Crit. (1880) 248 A painterly arranged exclamation of this kind. Ibid. 261 How well made up—how painterly! 1932 Times Lit. Suppl. 16 June 441/1 A linear style and a ‘painterly’ (a translation of the German word malerisch, which can also mean picturesque). 1942 Burlington Mag. Jan. 24/2 A technique which foreshadows the painterly methods of Watteau. 1950 Eng. Stud. XXXI. 166 One should not forget the exciting Kiplingesque rhythm+or the painterly qualities of the dramatic, colourful poem of Cummerbund, the monster of India. 1952 H. Read in P. & L. Murray tr. H. Wölfflin's Classic Art p. vi, One word, however, calls for comment—the word ‘painterly’, which has been invented to convey the meaning of the German word malerisch.+ It stands for that depreciation and gradual obliteration of line (outline and tangible surface) and for the merging of these in a ‘shifting semblance’ of things—it is an attempt to represent the vague and impalpable essence of things. 1958 Observer 23 Mar. 16/5 Short lyrics of precision and beauty, painterly poems, touchingly infused with the poet's passion for what is beautiful. 1958 Times 24 July 5/2 His recent attempts to exchange a linear for a more painterly manner. 1962 Punch 1 Aug. 177/3 Alberta Wheeler, ex-night club dancer and painterly genius. 1963 Guardian 11 Mar. 7/2 He is becoming more painterly, his colour more subtle, and his surface dense with matter. 1969 H. E. Bates Vanished World xi. 147 It was not only the painterly quality of Crane's prose that attracted me. 1969 R. Mayer Dict. Art Terms & Techniques 276/1 Painterly, having the quality of expertly brushed workmanship.+ A term applied to the dominance of tonal masses over line as a means of defining form in painting, sculpture, and architecture. 1973 F. Taubes Painter's Dict. 176 Botticelli is a linear painter, whilst Rembrandt's work would be considered painterly. 1973 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Aug. 900/3 The painterly aspect of each drawing is never forgotten: apart from shading with chalk or wash, in order to enliven a line or contour, pastels are employed and often coloured paper used. 1974 A. Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek xv. 268 A photograph of earth from space, the planet so startlingly painterly and hung. 1978 P. Porter Cost of Seriousness 2 Masts for Woodbridge Crowd three degrees of the horizon, edging A painterly Dutch sky.
Hence "painterliness, painterly quality.
1955 P. Heron Changing Forms of Art xiii. 202 Hilton's conscious intention has been to eliminate all charm, all painterliness, even that evidence of mastery of the material which is itself a seductive element in painting. 1958 S. Spender Engaged in Writing iii. 43 Marteau's very appearance transformed the atmosphere from the weighted inwardness of Bonvolio-directed programme music, to cracking outdoor painterliness. 1977 Times Lit. Suppl. 24 June 761/5 Manet's painterly procedures—as well as his acknowledged painterliness.
hope you saved your airsickness bag from your last flight! painterly is a fine old word, here's the whole OED screed:You're a cruel person, you know that? Do you know how many times I had to read that terrible word to get through the reply?
It's just not right!If only I knew your most hated word...
Ali
I was at the opening of an art exhibition recently where the artist's painterly approach was being extolled by Grahame Sydney, probably NZ's best contemporary artist (although saying that is probably buying a fight, such things being supremely subjective - judge for yourselves at
http://www.grahamesydney.com/home.htmI quite like the word painterly, actually. It sums up the technical expertise of the artist's use of paint without necessarily commenting on the quality of the overall work. I have seen many pictures, as I'm sure many of us have, which I didn't particularly like but had to admire because of the way the paint was used to convey the image.
But then, likes and dislikes in the use of words is pretty subjective stuff, too!
It seems possible that the trouble with "painterly" is that the first thing "painter" brings to mind is house painter.
But then, likes and dislikes in the use of words is pretty subjective stuff, too!
That it is.
By the way, I took a peek at the linked sight. Some very nice work there. Good sense of space, and the touch of mystery that makes a landscape piece more than an illustration.
Ali
Internetivity. Ugh!
I was at a presentation on Friday and the person speaking said that their company was increasing the company's level of internetivity by opening up a web page. A word that caused immidiate disdain.
And yes, I know we have touched on this recently, but I just hate the word utilize. I know by previous threads that there can be situations where it can be used but dag nabbit, most people simply use utilize because use sounds common.