Does beckto's aversion to guesstimate fall into this category? It's surely visceral. 

posted by natedogg at 11:28AM CST on August 22

Man, what do these people have against "hardscrabble" and "pugilist"? Those words are totally badass. I could understand if mrflip was upset by hardscrabble, but only if his explanation was that there is no such thing and that the word should be easyscrabble. 

posted by habcous at 11:52AM CST on August 22

Also for the record, I am strongly in favor of the word moist. I think it is great. I sometimes even go further than that and say that something that is damp is "Moistes Alou".  

posted by natedogg at 11:54AM CST on August 22

You knew this was coming.... My aversion to the word guesstimate is nothing like these people's aversion to the word "moist". I don't like that word because it is useless, not because it sounds ugly. It is just a wrong useless word and it is stupid and only stupid people don't know whether they are "estimating" or "guessing" and therefor have to resort to a mash of the two. Learn the fucking definition of the work "estimate" you idiots! I do have the same aversion for the same reason to the phrase "my bad". It isn't even an extra syllable to say "fault" instead of "bad". Use fucking correct english you morons!
As for words I find ugly, I hate the word "Knoll".  

posted by beckto at 12:22PM CST on August 22

I just read nate's link. Ummm that definition defines a fucking guess! Even the definition says it isn't any different from "guess." Its just a way to say "I'm guessing, but believe me damn it! I'm trying to sound smart here!" Morons.
Ok, I think I'm done.  

posted by beckto at 12:25PM CST on August 22

I think Beckto's aversion to guesstimate is more accurately described by "word rage" (as evidenced by her post above). It's described in the Language Log post as:

"Where people get angry at jargon or slang associated with a despised group, or upset because a word or phrase is felt to be incorrectly used, or annoyed at language that they perceive as redundant, or overly complicated, or pretentious, or a cliché, or trendy, or politically incorrect."

She does, however, have a visercal reaction to the word "knoll" (but not so much to "gnoll" or "noel" when pronounced similarly). 

posted by Ned at 12:35PM CST on August 22

I don't like "pubic". I think that stems from its omnipresence in uncomfortable health classes circa 7th grade. I still get the willies thinking about it. 

posted by NanoCindy at 01:56PM CST on August 22

NanoCindy, maybe if you spell it "p***c", it will be more comforting to your sensibilities. 

posted by javelina at 09:06PM CST on August 22

Amanda cringes at the word "twat". 

posted by zieglerfe at 05:42PM CST on September 10