Words you dislike? Or really like?

[OldPhiKap]

I think your write. Its what their doing.

Literally.

[Tripping William]

Listening to the British Open radio broadcast, with British announcers, has rekindled my great fondness for one very small word:


“Wee.”

[jimsumner]

Listening to the British Open radio broadcast, with British announcers, has rekindled my great fondness for one very small word:


“Wee.”

Just a wee breeze.

[Tripping William]

Just a wee breeze.

Makes me want a wee dram. Or a wee heavy.

[Reilly]

I really like the work pique.

It's fun to say.
You can have a fit of pique.
Something can pique your interest.

A question for the more literary knowledegable on the board...I've been seeing "peaked my interest" a lot lately, and from supposedly educated people. Is this now acceptable? It's clearly not a typo, or the product of hurried typing (which I sometimes give people the benefit of the doubt for when they screw up their/they're, for example...but no excuse for screwing up 'there' in that combo).

Apparently piqued still used 10x as often as peaked and it's only at stage 1 on the language change index:

https://books.google.com/books?id=2x...0pique&f=false

[rsvman]

I think there are way too many people these days who don't know that "piqued" my interest is correct, and just spell the word phonetically. This particular error happens to be one of my linguistic pet peeves.

[dudog84]

Apparently piqued still used 10x as often as peaked and it's only at stage 1 on the language change index:

https://books.google.com/books?id=2x...0pique&f=false

Where do you guys find this stuff?!? I appreciate that you do.

However, I think they're wrong at 10:1. I believe I see 'peaked' more often than 'piqued'. Note in the reference that 2 of the citations are from 1996, I think it has gotten worse since then. Also notable that those citations are the Village Voice and the Boston Herald, both of which should know better.

[-jk]

I think there are way too many people these days who don't know that "piqued" my interest is correct, and just spell the word phonetically. This particular error happens to be one of my linguistic pet peeves.

Yeah, I get tired of that, too...

-jk

[Reilly]

Where do you guys find this stuff?!? I appreciate that you do.

However, I think they're wrong at 10:1. I believe I see 'peaked' more often than 'piqued'. Note in the reference that 2 of the citations are from 1996, I think it has gotten worse since then. Also notable that those citations are the Village Voice and the Boston Herald, both of which should know better.

I checked my hardcover "Garner's Modern American Usage" (3rd ed.; copyright 2009) and it's listed as stage 1 on the language-change index. That said, 2009 is almost a decade ago.

There are 5 stages to the language-change index. 1: rejected; 2: widely shunned; 3: widespread but ...; 4: ubiquitous but ...; 5: fully accepted.

Garner lists analogies in ten areas for the 5-stage index. In school grading, 1: F; 2: D; 3: C; 4: B; 5: A. In etiquette, 1: audible farting; 2: audible belching; 3: overloud talking; 4: elbows on table; 5: refined.

Next time you encounter "peaked my interest", ask the user why they are audibly farting (linguistically).

[dudog84]

I checked my hardcover "Garner's Modern American Usage" (3rd ed.; copyright 2009) and it's listed as stage 1 on the language-change index. That said, 2009 is almost a decade ago.

There are 5 stages to the language-change index. 1: rejected; 2: widely shunned; 3: widespread but ...; 4: ubiquitous but ...; 5: fully accepted.

Garner lists analogies in ten areas for the 5-stage index. In school grading, 1: F; 2: D; 3: C; 4: B; 5: A. In etiquette, 1: audible farting; 2: audible belching; 3: overloud talking; 4: elbows on table; 5: refined.

Next time you encounter "peaked my interest", ask the user why they are audibly farting (linguistically).

That's funny!

Re 'peaked', put me down for widely shunned.

Re myself, put me down for elbows on table. That I was a 4 makes me quite proud of myself.

[camion]

I checked my hardcover "Garner's Modern American Usage" (3rd ed.; copyright 2009) and it's listed as stage 1 on the language-change index. That said, 2009 is almost a decade ago.

There are 5 stages to the language-change index. 1: rejected; 2: widely shunned; 3: widespread but ...; 4: ubiquitous but ...; 5: fully accepted.

Garner lists analogies in ten areas for the 5-stage index. In school grading, 1: F; 2: D; 3: C; 4: B; 5: A. In etiquette, 1: audible farting; 2: audible belching; 3: overloud talking; 4: elbows on table; 5: refined.

Next time you encounter "peaked my interest", ask the user why they are audibly farting (linguistically).

If I belch in the forest and no one hears it...


then why bother?

[BLPOG]

I just caught up on a month of this thread and was gratified to discover the amount of overlap in others' disliked words with my own list.

Here are a few more words that I do like:

veldt
bivouac
paroxysm

Upon consideration of the last one, it occurs to me that sometimes I like or dislike a word in part due to association with a particular experience. I remember learning "paroxysm" after searching for a word to describe something a cute girl did while we were in high school. During an assembly in the auditorium, she noticed I was sitting in the row behind her, turned around, and shouted "I love you!" at me.

[NSDukeFan]

I assume brouhaha has already been mentioned as a great word, but if not it should have been, IMO.

[devildeac]

I assume brouhaha has already been mentioned as a great word, but if not it should have been, IMO.

Did you mean brewhaha?

[OldPhiKap]

Did you mean brewhaha?

I thought it was BrewHaüsHaüs.

[devildeac]

I thought it was BrewHaüsHaüs.

Even better. With the umlaut, too. Very impressive.

[NSDukeFan]

Did you mean brewhaha?

I assume that would be a funny get together over beers?

[Jackson]

I hate the words blessed and blessing. Not sure why but I suppose it reminds me of people thinking God when they hit a homerun or win an Oscar.

[devildeac]

I assume that would be a funny get together over beers?

We should send that to one of the on-line and/or in-print dictionaries as a "new" word.

[OldPhiKap]

We should send that to one of the on-line and/or in-print dictionaries as a "new" word.

Related -- I'm waiting for someone to post a downloadable, 3-D printer IPA. Someone needs to get on that pronto.