Writer's Block: Words that you love and hate

[shadowkat]

What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?

I love the word Fuck. I know it is crazy. But it is such a good word. It is honest and blunt and crude. It can be used in more than one context and clearly gets across how one feels. Also you can tell a lot about a person by how they react to it.

Hate the word passive. It feels well weak to me. So does Sad. Don't like that word much at all. Not descriptive enough. I don't know what people mean when they say it.

The word - Dude. Ugh. Makes me cringe. I don't know why exactly. Might be that an old college friend used it ad naseum?

Adore the word wonky - which I think was made up. Has a nice sound I think. I like words that have a certain sound to them. Pristine. Soiled. Descriptive words - that can sum things up without having to use too many of them.

Hate the words cunt, faggot rhymes with maggot (both harsh sounding words), nigger rhymes with snigger - which have a demeaning dirty feel to them, like you want to jump in the shower and scrub yourself clean forever. Ho or Whore....Slut is better, I think. I like slut. You can be slutty but not be demeaned for it. I'm such a slut. Don't know, just like it better.

Prefer the sound of Aunt (ant) to Aunt (Ont)- one is down to earth, the other makes you sound hoity-toity or like you've got a fish up your throat.

Always like the word why. Sky, my, to die...lie...or lye...which oddly enough can both result in a sort of corrosion, one physical and one well emotional.

I like the French word for love better than the English - Amore....which makes me think of the English word more.

Also like the French words for Miss, Mr, and MRs -Ma'am for better - Mademoiselle, Monsieur, Madame.

Don't like the word poodle. Not found of the word prissy. Or girly. Or frilly.

Blunt. That's a good word. Can use that in lots of ways. The blunt edge of the sword. Or you don't have to be so blunt.

Bloody - now that is a wickedly cool curse word. And a great word all around. Adore it.
Bloody hell. Or damn that was a bloody movie. Or she was so bloody, I threw up just looking at her corpse.

Bugger, bug, bugged - also is nifty. Bug - You bug me. Or you are such a bug. Or an ant is a bug. Bugger it all. Bugger. He is a bugger. The word keeps changing depending on the context in which it is used. Really cool.

Feline...I like that word much better than cat. Although always did like the word cat, so much so, I used to name characters in my stories Cat or Kat. Dog...not so much. It is such a sad sounding word. So...down on the last syllable...dooog. Or doggone it. Or dogged shame. Or she is such a dog. Negative. But cat...has more grace, and bite. Catty - critical.
She's such a cat. Panther. A true feline.

Cock. Not a word I like much. But it has more heft than penis does. Dick is fun. Because it is both a person's name and well another word for penis. Since I have an Uncle Dick (actually he's changed it back to Richard now) who can be quite a *dick* at times, albeit an adorable one - dick is a cool word. Albeit is too...which I use far too often.

Boobs. Sounds crass. Juvenile. Bosom. Too hoity-toity, like a finishing school matron. Breasts...can handle. Breast. Course Boobs can be fun. Boobies.

Booty. Cool word. Can mean butt. Or well buried treasure.

Package. Another word with multiple meanings.

I like words that can mean more than one thing. Or are in one sense not descriptive at all and in another highly descriptive. She got a package in the mail the other day. He touched his crouch and adjusted his package.

Giggle. Nice word. Cackle. Better one. Snort. Even better. Short. Quick. And so descriptive. He snorted. A laugh through one's nose.

It's getting late and I have managed to not post a whiney woe is me post like I was about to, yay me. Or another cranky post. Speaking of which like the word cranky - whiney, not so much. Do like the Australian version of it "whinger" or Whinge...nicer sound.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

What a fun post! And I do agree: a slut has free will, while a ho is a slave to her need for money....

I've always loved words which are onomonpia like zipper, or pop (or giggle or snort, or for that matter: fuck). In fact I like the word onomonpia.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You can blame the lj moderators... I kept trying to come up with something to post, deleted five or six ranty, whingy entries, when I finally looked at this question next to the update link: Writers block? What are you favorite and least favorite words? Why?

And I thought, oh, what the hell. Let's see what happens. And you want to know something? It made me feel better. Actually made me feel better.
Have discovered something venting and ranting in my lj or in my head or in a private written journal doesn't always have the promised effect of making me feel good afterwards. If anything I feel worse. And a little ashamed to boot. Sort of supports something I read in that Social Psych course I audited a year or so ago - that if you are angry or stressed the worst thing you could do is punch a bag - if anything it just makes you angrier, and more aggressive. Channeling the anger as opposed to dispersing it. Sort of similar to how when you apply heat you draw the pain to it, and cold disperses it.

Love onomopia too. Just can't spell it. It's the sound I like. Although will admit, I have a preference for words I can pronounce, or for that matter spell - if I can't, they frustrate me.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I have to agree about taking an angry feeling and making it even stronger by expressing it. I can feel annoyed, and if I yell or throw something then I find I raise my blood pressure, and feelings of upset, so that it takes me much longer to get over it. It is better for me to find some way to relax and cool off.
I do think that always suppressing or denying anger can lead to problems (particularly when someone just gets rid of them w/drugs, alcohol or food), but finding calmer ways to release it (like exercising: swimming in particular works for me, but long walks work for me too). I really liked what you said:
"Sort of similar to how when you apply heat you draw the pain to it, and cold disperses it."
that is exactly my experience.

[ann1962]

Honest to god, I had a coworker in Indiana whose husband had a belt buckle with his name, and his name was Dick. I had to walk away every time I saw him at any event, because there it was, named. And he was a dick too.

I like wh sounds in words.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

LOL!

I think that's why my Uncle changed his to Richard. Such a tough name to shorten Richard. It is either Dick, Dicky, Rich or Richie. Rich - you are "rich" or that's just *rich* (in sarcasm). How's the little dicky?
Or you are such a dick. LOL! William has problems too - but at least you can shorten it to Bill. Willy. Ugh. But Will...not so bad.

Then's there's the name Pratt. Which apparently in England means nitwit or idiot or brat. But is also the name of a college and a person's last name, including the famous horror film star - whose name was William Pratt.

Oooh agree about the wh sound. What. Where. Why. Whatever. Whether...love Whether.

Not found of the TH or S sound though - since I confuse them and can seldom make them out.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

At Ohio State on the first day of the term, I was waiting outside the room for the class, before the one I was teaching, to leave when one of the students standing nearby asked another, "Do you know who's teaching this class?" The other replied, "Some dude named ...". I'm from west of the Mississippi and of a certain age. I don't like people I don't know calling me a dude. The kid had no idea he was insulting anyone, but sure enough, it was probably the most troublesome class I ever taught. ;o)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Dude is such an odd word. It can be a pet name or a name you call a causal friend. It can mean a dude on ranch - the lower level cowboy or rancher, who freelances. Whenever I think of the word, I see Paul Newman in the film Hud - he was such a *dude* - which is the other connotation.
The negative one.

It's a word that depends on the context. But most of the time - people seem to use it to sound casual or hip or sarcastic - "I mean DUDE, you've got to know that think sucked, right?" Sort of like the way the word man often is used. "Man, that was bad." or "Oh man, you've got to be crazy."

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

I love borrowed words, words that are fairly new to me like British and Australian slang. Whinge, wanker, ("w" words are fun, aren't they), coyote, arroyo, little kids calling out "Mira!" (Look!) in the grocery store, bloody, and so on. English-only people are wankers, lol.

[ann1962]

I think the w words are so nice because they blow softly out of a rounded mouth. They are soft sounding, and feeling. And even when it is paired with a sharper sound as in wanker, the k being such a strong sound, it softens the whole word, the contrast effective.

I love the mouth feel of words more so than their meaning. But when a cool feeling word is paired with an excellent meaning, then you have a winner. Also why alliteration, assonance are such popular effects, because they really give an emotional tone, hence a complexity to words. How our bodies make the sounds influences how we perceive them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah yes...wanker. Love that word. Wank. Rhymes with Spank. But manages to convey the same meaning as "spanking the monkey" in far less words.

Also like other words...such as the French word for shit "Merde"
Or the Spainish word for more - that sounded like masa, but can't remember.

Language is fun to play with. Purists hate slang and keep trying to keep it out of dictionaries, but forget that all language began as slang at some point in time.