So I don't think there are any specific words that make my hair stand on end. But a few of my friends (all who happen to be girls) have a number of different words they can't stand hearing. One in particular hates the words "hump," "globalization," and the expressions "f__k your brains out."
I have some adversion to hearing people referred to as "pussies," or "fags" but the words themselves in other contexts don't bother me at all, in fact, I myself may even use them. I only dislike particular vocabularly sets. Specifically when people use a very large, seemingly articulate vocabulary who either don't use it correctly, far to often, or use completely archaeic words in place of perfectly useful modern ones. Maybe they don't want all the word power the studied so intently in 11th grade to go to waste. But seriously, just let it go. I feel like I can contribute to an intelligent conversation without having to pass our thesauruses (spell check) or dictionaries in order for people to understand what I'm trying to say. There's nothing more rude than trying to intimidate people with your word choices.
So I thought I'd try and revive this thread because I have further discussed this with a number of people and it appears that more and more have hang-ups about certain words than I ever realized. One girl last night told me she has a great aversion to hearing "in essence" but suggests this has to do with listening to a lecture in which a woman said this nearly every sentence. I suppose it's kind of like how many get so badly sick drunk off of a particular kind of alcohol and swear off the stuff for the rest of their lives. Maybe that's why vodka and I don't get along very well.
