It’s a word that can automatically set off people cringing and shuddering.
And now a team of psychologists are trying to figure out precisely why the word “moist” is so widely hated.
In a piece posted entitled “The ‘Moist’ Conundrum” published on The Psych Report website, Paul Thibodeau, assistant professor of cognitive psychology at Oberlin College, writes about “aversive language”, and specifically why aversion to “moist” is so prevalent.
During a five-year study involving 2,500 people, around 18 percent of participants were revealed to be “categorically averse” to the word, with women, younger people, and the better-educated tending to score higher on measures of disgust toward bodily function more generally.
While the study found that there are words deemed far more offensive and horrible, “moist” still holds a particular aversion for the following three reasons:
1) Sound:
The study suggests that “certain sounds are inherently unpleasant—like fingernails scratching a chalkboard.” Interestingly, your hatred of the word might also be due to the fact that “saying the word engages the same facial muscles that contract when we see (or smell or hear) something disgusting.”
2) Connotation:
Alternatively, “moist” might be a victim of our mental associations with other words or things that we also find disgusting, like vomit, phlegm, or certain sexual acts. But the scientists also point out that “moist” can have positive connotations too, for instance when used in the context of delicious desserts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCnflNnP63u/?taken-by=nigellalawson
So the explanation could be that the word has positive and negative associations, which causes a confused sensory response in our poor little minds.
3) Social transmission: “A final possibility is that the word may have become aversive because of the attention it has received in popular and social media,” states the report. This basically means that if a word gains traction for being disgusting, it’s very hard for it to shake that reputation.
https://twitter.com/kvrsty/status/706947151209885696
And while this study should merely be taken as a starting point for further research, the psychologists conclude the following:
“But the present studies suggest that, when it comes to the disgust that is elicited by words like “moist,” there is an important cultural component—the symbols we use to communicate with one another can become contaminated and elicit disgust by virtue of their association with bodily functions.”
TL;DR: You probably hate the word “moist” because you, consciously and subconsciously, associate it with gross noises produced by, and emissions from your body.
What other words do you absolutely despise? Email us Hello@JOE.co.uk, or message us on Facebook.
