Words that make you cringe

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Are there words that make you cringe?

Although I came to love America, ( I am English) I find slang talk off putting. Words such as suck make me cringe to such an extent I will not read any post from anyone at WP that uses such expresion. I know this may sound silly, but that's me. Its not just an American thing i should add. I dislike all commonly used slang either side of the 'pond'

Could somebody tell me where suck comes from.........like suck what? Is it sexual?

I think I react to any slang word that becomes fashionable, be it English or American.

I have heard that many with AS dont follow trends or fashions, but suck and cool seem just as commonly used here as in anywhere else. Why is this?

Yes, it means the act of fellatio. At a time when such an act was not considered acceptable then the usage of "suck" was meant to imply negativity.

I thought as much......thanks

moist :S

I used to hate slang, I can relate. Not so much now, at least for some. Some I still won't touch.

As for words that make me cringe beyond that, I have synesthetic associations with words, so the words that make me cringe tend to be due to bad sensory association and may not otherwise make sense.

"so-called"

Increasingly.

I hear it all the time on radio news programs. Good journalists don't use the word, bad journalists use it all the time.

"Increasingly" is a form of the word "increasing," and means something has increased up to this point, and will also increase in the future. It implies knowledge of the future.

"Increasingly" is a perfectly valid word for historians: you can say "Hitler was increasingly harsh toward the Jews" because you know what happens next. It is also a valid word for scientists: they can say "as we apply heat the water becomes increasingly hot." Both group, as historians and scientists, have a valid reasons for knowing what will happen after a point. But journalists do not.

Good journalists say "this has increased, and experts say it may continue to increase." Those are both facts. They can be measured. But bad journalists say "this is increasingly the case" because it makes them sound like they can predict the future, so we should be scared and should listen to them! When a journalist says "increasingly" they imply:

1. They are liars (they do not actually know the future)
2. They are arrogant (claiming they have an ability that they do not)
3. They are either inexperienced or evil or poor communicators: experienced and honest journalists know that the hardest thing to predict is the future, and if they are good at their job the audience can draw their own conclusions about the future.
4. They are lazy (they could not find any real facts so they made this up)
5. They are prejudiced (despite the lack of information they accept it as a fact)
6. They are dangerous (they appear on the TV or radio presenting lies as truth)
7. They consider us pretty stupid as well (we will not notice their wild claims)
8. Usually they are scaremongers (most news is about dangerous things, and to say it is "increasingly" dangerous suggests it will be worse in the future)

Whenever I read/listen to/watch the news, if I hear the word "increasingly" (unless it id from historians and scientists) I mentally replace it with the words "wowoowoowoo" and imagine the speaker waving their hands in the air like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants. It has the same effect.

"you know."

A similar phrase is when politicians say "you know." It means "you already agree so we do not need to discus this" and is usually applied to something so vague (like "we want good things") that it seriously needs examination, not to be glossed over n a "we are all friends here" way. In other words, it has exactly the same meaning as "prejudice" (which means pre-judice, or pre-judging). So whenever I hear a politician say "you know" I mentally replace it with the word prejudice.

I don't like it when politicians call reporters by their first names either, but that may be just an aspie thing.

I find that by mentally replacing the words "increasingly" and "you know" I can filter out most of the idiot journalists and scheming politicians and only listen to knowledgeable journalists and politicians who respect their audience. They do exist, but they speak more quietly than the other kind.

Last edited by trappedinhell on 03 Sep 2011, 6:17 am, edited 2 times in total.

preggers
anyways
wees

to name a few

*shudders*

Oh, I hate cutesy words. Especially cutesy words for human body parts, like "tummy." Also, cutesy nicknames.

It was originally "sucks d**k.." back in the day. The second word got dropped- it then became more widely used because the obscenity only became implied.

Anyway..

There are terms that make me cringe.
But most of these terms come down from the board room and not up from the street.

Terms like "town home". Yuck!

It means those rowhouses that are built with common walls with their adjacent nieghbors.


They are called "townhouses".

But real estate companies in TV commercials(atleast here in the USA) avoid any use of the word for the very thing they are in the business of selling- "houses".

Husband and wife characters in the spots will say "I didnt even know those homes were there!'- when in real life they would say " I didnt even know those HOUSES were there!"

They only use the word "home". So such structures are called "townhomes" in real estate commrecials.

But the other day I heard our local TV newscaster talking about storm damage to a group of "townhomes".

So its happening! The term is now spreading beyond commercials and into general usage! NO! NO! Stooooop!

And there are other terms like: "inhanced interrogation".
That ofcourse means "torture".

Im sure you can think of other terms that have come from government and corporate beauracracy that make one cringe.

Though one beauracratic term I like (havent uttered it aloud but I think it all of the time) comes from the watergate tapes of Nixon and his aides: "plausible deniability".

When you succeed in covering your ass with a story that COULD be true (whether it is true or not)- you have achieved "plausible deniability."

We all have been in the habit of seeking that since childhood, but few of us have actually had a term for it!

Plausible deniablility.

Is that a handy term or what?

Moist has always bothered me too.

''Munchkin'' makes me cringe. I HATE being called that stupid word!! !! !! !! !! !!

ret*d makes me cringe. How I hate that word. The next time some kid calls me that, I'll say "I know you are."

I don't like "veggies" for vegetables. I know it's just a shortening, fewer letters to type, fewer syllables to say, but when I was a child it would only have been baby-talk, to a tiny child who is just learning to eat solids. An adult saying it would have been "cutesy", to a baby who doesn't talk well yet either, like an adult saying "kitchy kitchy koo", For the last thirty or forty years it's been everywhere. It's not reasonable of me to dislike it, and I wish that I could get over it. There's no more reason for me to dislike it than "bike" for bicycle. But I do, and it's totally unnecessary irritation in my life, demanding that the rest of the English-speaking world speak _my_ language. But every time I hear it, I still cringe.

Same here, I hate that word.

Quite a lot of the slang words for sexual organs make me cringe and I have trouble saying them - fanny, p****, cock, dick, etc.

my ex. used to use the word "scran" for food which got on my nerves. Also any Yorkshirized versions of actual words like scrat (scratch), favver (father), waaaam (warm) rub me up the wrong way.

There are loads of words that irritate me but I can't think of any more right now

The word touch bothers me.