The word ‘moist’ is disgusting and in my opinion should be banned from usage forever.
There needs to be a better word for what a good cake texture feels like in your mouth. Please don’t let it be moist.
The guys over at JOE did some investigating and unearthed a pretty interesting study.
There are actual reasons behind our aversion to this word, according to Slate.
Dr. Paul Thibodaut ran five experiments over four years with over 2,500 participants and found that the reason people don’t like the word is the ‘bodily connotations’ it comes with.
So you think of moist, and your brain automatically goes to words like phlegm, mucus, and discharge.
I’m sorry for typing these words. Truly I am but it’s for science.
People were similarly disgusted by words like ‘foist’, according to Thibodaut.
Jason Riggle is a linguistics professor, and he explained that words like ‘moist’: “evoke nausea and disgust rather than, say, annoyance or moral outrage. And the disgust response is triggered because the word evokes a highly specific and somewhat unusual association with imagery or a scenario that people would typically find disgusting.”
So we don’t hate the word for how it sounds, but for the disgusting image it conjures up.
Other words that conjure up the same level of horror include:
phlegm, ooze, mucus, puke, scab, and pus.
