A week ago I ran into a wonderful blog post that made me think about the words I most love—and hate. In some cases, there’s a reason why I love a particular word. I just love saying “mellifluous,” for example. And “sonsy.” Other times, my intense dislike for a word is inexplicably visceral. Just hearing the word “visceral” makes me a little queasy.
Out of curiosity, last week I asked my friends to contribute their own most-hated words. True to their sunny dispositions, my friends also submitted some of their favorites. And interestingly, we had a bit of disagreement over “moist.” One person’s moist chocolate cake is another person’s moist, slug-covered forest floor, apparently.
Anyway … at first I thought it might be fun to combine everyone’s words into a short story. Alas, no one wants to read a story whose first line is
The cellar door on the puce hafenschlepper creaked mellifluously as the moist rust metastasized upon the door’s gruntled hinges.”
So instead I turned to wordle.net for a bit of word-cloud fun. Here are a couple of the automatically generated results:
I send out a big thanks to everyone who played. Interacting with you through this blog is among my most rewarding experiences as a writer. So thank you for reading—and for brightening so many of my days.
HeideBlog 
Where has Wordle been all my life?! And how am I ever to get anything useful done ever again? This is just so, SO my perfect creative time-waster. Thank you (I think) so much for the pointer. I love the fun you had with turning our words into a story, and I am very proud to recognise my words of choice in there amongst the gang – even Hochmagandy made it in, I see! A thought: maybe you could make a cloud of everyone’s favourites, leaving out the nasties. It would be a great cheerer-upper on down days. (Or indeed you could make a cloud of nasties only, for musing on in particularly misanthropic moments…)
I’m always happy to help you waste your time, dancingbeastie! Isn’t Wordle *wonderful*? It’s heaps of fun — but it also doesn’t take very long. Unless you start plugging in Shakespeare sonnets and Tolkien quotes, as I did for a good full hour yesterday afternoon. 🙂 And point well taken about making a cloud of everyone’s favorites/nasties, tho that may have to wait until this evening. Anyway … here’s wishing you a lovely day.
OoOoooh, Tolkien quotes….mm, I have a neurologist’s appointment today and that could keep me happy for hours in the hospital waiting room…!
Happy Tuesday to you. 🙂
Happy to be of service! 🙂
One of my favorites is “Not all those who wander are lost.” I quote it often when I’m at the wheel of a car. Ha.
I like those word clouds–they could become addicting!
I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds last night and I remembered two words that I hate: criminology and unsub. Please tell me that they are not real words.
I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds last night and I remembered two words that I hate: victimology and unsub. Please tell me that they are not real words.
I can’t find them in my dictionary, so I’m happy to declare victimology and unsub null and void. (What’s an “unsub,” anyway?! I’m puzzled over that one.)
It’s police slang. Short for “unnamed subject”. Never heard victimology before. I can’t defend that one.
It’s only 4:03 a.m., and already I’ve learned something new. Thank you!
The awful word “moist” also make me think of my least favorite sound, that of a banana being bit into (cringe!).
Thanks for that truly disgusting audio/visual image, Jim! *CRINGE*!! 🙂