Word Aversion

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. My name is Holly.

Hello, who is this?

Oh, hi, Holly.

Hi, hi. I’m calling from Indianapolis.

All right.

Yeah.

Awesome.

And I was actually calling about my incredible hatred, incredible aversion to the word.

I can’t even say it. Can I spell it?

Wait, you can’t say it?

I really, really can’t.

What is it?

I will if you will say it with me.

Let me spell it.

Can we say this on the radio?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

It’s not an obscene word at all.

It makes my flesh crawl.

Oh, my goodness.

Okay.

Okay.

Ready?

M-O-I-S-T.

Moist?

Oh, my Lord.

Grant, please.

I hate this word so much.

Oh.

Oh, Holly.

What do you mean you hate it?

I cannot explain to you.

And I tell you, this is an aversion I have had my entire life long.

But, Holly, moist?

Yes.

I mean, shall I just call it the M word?

I mean, because I don’t want to upset you.

In my home, my wonderful children, they either call it lotion or emurizer.

My partner Tom thought that he could desensitize me to the word by using it as often as possible.

It doesn’t work, does it?

Moist, moist, moist, moist.

Oh, no, please.

Martha, you’re killing me.

When you get a bucket of chicken from KFC and it comes with a little lemon-scented towelettes,

What do you call those, just towelettes?

I call them towelettes, yes.

Okay.

And going down the shampoo aisle, or what I love to do is bake, you know, at my job.

Sure.

At every job I’ve had, I’ve always been the birthday cake baker.

You know, I’m a mom.

It’s just what I do.

Right.

And it is horrifying because I guarantee, I know going in when I bring that cake in that someone is going to come up to me and say,

Oh, Holly, this cake is so very M.

But let me tell you where you can find out more about this, and you’ll find that there is a community of people like you.

Oh, we’re not alone anymore.

Believe it or not, there is a Facebook group.

No.

Yes, there is a Facebook group.

I hate the word moist.

No.

That’s what it’s called.

And there’s like – the last time I checked it, there were over 100 people that were in the group.

What?

I am astonished.

Well, Holly, do you feel better having come out of the moist closet on national radio?

I do. I feel as though I am not alone.

No.

That there are other people.

And when I get off the phone with you, I’m going online.

Yep.

Go straight to Facebook and then find your brothers and your sisters.

I will. I will. I will.

I feel relieved.

Keep up the wonderful work and thank you.

Thank you, Holly. Take care of yourself.

It was nice to hear from you.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Martha.

Bye-bye.

Bye now.

I feel like I can go get my psychotherapy degree now.

I can’t believe there’s a whole Facebook group of people who hate the word moist.

Oh, no, and this isn’t a new family.

It’s not like it just burst on the scene.

Mark Lieberman and the gang at Language Log, who, again, I’m giving them all due credit for this because they did the legwork on it.

And just the list of stuff that – and it’s not just these words.

There’s many more of these words that people just – it’s real.

It’s not a stunt.

They’re not performing for people to say, oh, yeah, wacky me.

I’ve got a word that drives me crazy.

They are really bothered by these words.

And one of the guys on Language Log, one of the linguists there, compared it to stenesthesia.

Do you know this word?

Oh, sure.

When people taste, the man who tasted shapes, right?

Right.

Or you hear a sound and see a color.

Exactly.

Stuff like that.

Exactly.

So your senses are a little bit intertwined in a way that most people’s are not.

Weird.

And I don’t know if that’s the same thing, but it does remind me of that.

Well, Holly, cover your ears.

What do you guys think about moist?

Give us a call. The number is 1-877-929-9673, or let’s talk about it on our discussion forum.

That’s at waywordradio.org slash discussion.

Of course, you can always send us an email any time, day or night.

We read everything. The address is words@waywordradio.org.